Rise of Uzunami
by MangaMan250
Summary: The nine tails attacks!This time Minato and Kushina survive, their son Naruto is a prodigy ninja under the guidance of Itachi Uchiha until Academy years - but how long will he stay in Konoha? New village, OC's to be involved , Action,humor,romance. Many differences and clashes with Cannon storyline.
1. The Beginning!

The military was no match, how could they defeat something that couldn't be killed? They were merely throwing their lives away to stall, the beast lashed out against any upcoming challengers – not that any phased it in the slightest, it ripped trees from the ground and with each swing could dramatically change the land scape.

The beast was being controlled, but that wasn't the important matter at hand, its orange fur contrasted against the night sky almost if the sky itself was ablaze in the flames of destruction, its nine tails that gave it its name swung and lashed out at the surrounding area getting ever closer to the Hidden Village of Konoha.

"**Kuchiyose no jutsu!**" shouted the man – the other shinobi looked on in awe, did he plan to fight such a beast by himself? Suddenly a giant toad appeared, just as huge as the kyuubi in front of it, it drew its enormous dagger and was successfully parrying the tails of the fox, but it wouldn't last long.

"Minato! I won't be able to hold him off much longer!" shouted the huge toad before feeling the scar forming over his eye.  
"Okay Gamabunta! It's done!" Shouted the current Hokage successfully completing his seal – the seal that would end his life as well as force the fox into his only child changing the boy's life forever.

The shinigami appeared, and sealed the fox into the new-born infant, it was time for Minato Namikaze to leave his wife and only child behind, his soul being held tightly by the Shinigami before a plea was heard.

"Wait! Hokage-sama! Shinigami-sama!" Shouted the bloody and beaten shinobi wearing Konoha attire. "Don't worry- you served me well, I am proud of all of you." The Hokage said looking down at the man with a smile.

"Please! Shinigami! Allow my soul to be taken instead of Hokage-sama's!" cried the man.  
"Minato Namikaze …Do you accept this offer?" asked the god of death.  
"P-Please! Hokage-sama!" Pleaded the man "The village needs you!" he continued.  
"I-I…I accept…" said the Hokage "You will be known to all for your kindness." Smiled the Hokage at the man – whose life was shortly ended by the Shinigami.

"My business is finished." Said the Shinigami before disappearing into nothingness.  
It was done, the Kyuubi had been defeated, however at a large cost – the village was saved, but the Hokage himself was saved, and was in debt to the man who had saved him. 'Any surviving family of the man will be cared for as one of my own.' The hokage  
thought before returning to his village.

_**Konoha- hidden village in the leaves**_

the people had gathered into a huge crowd before the speaking Hokage, he had told them all of the battle with the kyuubi and continued his speech.

"This boy…" he held up his only son "This boy is the prison of the kyuubi – He is the one that keeps us safe from its evil!" announced the Hokage, proud of his son in a way, the village erupted in cheer.  
"There is another man that you should be thanking for our victory, the reason I am still alive, he gave his very soul to the god of death to save our village!" the crowd went quiet.  
"He was also a father like me – his name family name was Iruka." A small child in the audience wept, the scar across his face didn't come anywhere close to rivalling this pain.

"Iruka Umino!" the Hokage announced "From this day forward you will live alongside my family, and from this day I will treat you as one of my own." He declared, erupting another cheer of the audience gently pushing Iruka forward to the Hokage, who held the boy in a soft hug.

"Things must be tough, huh? ..." he said softly "don't worry, things will be okay" he smiled reassuringly at the boy.

_**Four Years later**_

Minato was away from home that day, dealing with the average Hokage day, and his worst enemy since the kyuubi attack – the never ending amount of paperwork that sieged his office every working day, at the Namikaze house hold Kushina was left with her two boys.

"Iruka-kun, have you finished your homework for the academy?" she asked the boy- he never did like to study after all, she had to nag him a lot but couldn't help but feel bad afterwards.  
"N-Not yet Okaasan…" said the boy sheepishly expecting punishment.

She sighed at the boy, but couldn't possibly be mad with him "go on now, go upstairs and finish it then I can take you out for a treat." She smiled as she watched her son run up the stairs to his room with a grin on his face.

Naruto was quiet, studying as usual, his parents found it astonishing that the child was so interested in books, not knowing the contents of most the ones he read. Naruto although his young age of just four years couldn't think of being anything but being a ninja, and spent most of his time reading combat training manuals as well as strategies and without his parents knowing…jutsu scrolls.

Although quiet around his parents there were three adults that he really showed himself too, one was his God Father Jiraiya, the woman he considered to be his 'baa-chan' Tsunade, and the person who was the closest thing to an Auntie he had Uchiha Mikoto – but he also saw her as more of a mother figure.

Naruto, being so quiet at home was usually left to his own devices, not that he minded, but he would have liked a little attention every now and then –especially when Iruka was getting praise. He was a little jealous of his older brother who was already a Genin – being fourteen, after all he would soon be gaining the title of Chuunin, and Naruto hadn't even started the academy.

"Yes! Finished!" Shouted a cheery Iruka "now Okaasan will give me my treat." He smiled running down the stairs, Naruto shot up at this, he wanted a treat too, and followed after his older brother.  
"Of course we can Iruka-kun" she said happily as they walked towards the door, Naruto opened the door towards the living room, only to see them closing the door.

He let out a sigh, sometimes he wished he was as close as he was to his other 'brothers', Uchiha Itachi who he considered his older brother and Sasuke Uchiha who was the same age, they did everything together when Naruto was not at home, and like Naruto, Sasuke wanted to be just like his older brother Itachi and studied being a ninja for a lot of his time.

"Oh Ho, ho! ..." declared a man that now stood in the doorway "you in alone kid?" smiled the man looking towards Naruto, who couldn't help but let his blue eyes light up when he saw the man.  
"Jiraiya!" announced the blonde as he ran over and gave him a hug.

Jiraiya ruffled the boy's spikey hair before pulling out a bag. "Thought you might like to share these with me" he grinned offering Naruto some sweets "Why you here all alone anyway?" He asked looking down at the blonde.

To be honest, Naruto didn't know why he was all alone.  
"I don't think Okaasan knew I was here." He said glumly at the thought of his own mother not even knowing he was in the house. Jiraiya let out a loud laugh and decided to praise the boy on his quiet nature around his parents.  
"Well that must show how good of a ninja you are! …" he grinned at the boy  
"If you were here all this time and no one noticed you must be a professional already kid!" He let out a hearty laugh hoping to change the mood.

Naruto's eyes lit up again, he couldn't remember one single time that he was unhappy around Jiraiya, even when he was ill, Jiraiya came to visit and he felt good as new.  
"Someday will I be just like you Jiraiya?" The boy asked enthusiastically. Jiraiya stroked his chin faking deep though and placed his hand on Naruto's head.

"Hmmmm…" He said as if he were testing something. "Naruto! You will become a fine ninja, as long as you listen to your heart! Protect those you care for and never ever give up!" he announced proudly looking down at the boy he loved like his own.

Naruto grinned his foxy grin at the man, he felt lucky to have Jiraiya around, and he felt more like family than anyone of his blood relatives.

_ **Uchiha Compound**_

"Nii-san! …" shouted a small voice that was also associated with footsteps while he wandered around the house  
"Nii-san!" The voice of the small boy shouted again, he was nearly five years old, and had raven black hair much like his older brothers.

"I'm in here Sasuke!" Shouted a friendly voice, the boy ran over to where he heard the voice and slid open the door, happy to see his older brother, he slumped down next to him and smiled.  
"What are you doing Nii-san?" he asked intrigued at his older brother who looked to be slicing wood with his kunai.

Itachi raised up the piece of wood to show his younger brother, it had been shaped into that of a shuriken.  
"You'll be starting the academy soon, Sasuke-kun, so I thought I would make you some practice weapons." He said kindly, smiling at the boy. Sasuke grinned at his older brother looking at the wooden shuriken with content.

"All done!" said the older of the two placing it into a pile.  
"Would you like to try them out Sasuke-kun?" Itachi smiled at his younger.  
Sasuke shook his head in excitement "Can Naruto-Nii come too?" he asked not containing his excitement, and jumped up when his older brother nodded his head.

He ran back downstairs to where Itachi was sat; he was now dressed and ready to go, he grinned at his older brother waiting for him and walked over towards the door.  
"I'm surprised Sasuke-kun... you haven't asked me to play a game of shogi with you today" he said chuckling.  
"Jiraiya taught Naruto-Nii how to play last time I was over there" he beamed knowing he had someone to play his strategy game with.

The two set off towards Naruto's home, as Sasuke examined his wooden ninja weapon in his hand.

_**Hyuuga Compound**_

"Again! How do you expect to be a good leader of the head family like this!" Hiashi grunted at his young daughter, and looked over to the boy from the branch side.  
"Neji, you show great promise with the Byakugan – I hope you will use it for a good cause" he said smiling at his nephew. "Thank you Hiashi-sama." He said politely and bowed ever so slightly before going back to sparring with Hinata.

"S-Sorry Tou-san… N-Neji-kun would you mind s-showing me how you blocked my attack like that?" She said quietly, her cousin nodded kindly "Hai, Hinata-sama" and proceeded to show her the move he used.

After practice Hiashi left the dojo, leaving the two cousins there for a little while, he had important business to attend to, and left Hinata under the watch of Neji.  
"N-Neji-kun … Thank you for practising with me … you are very strong and your B-byakugan is amazing…" she almost whispered too him, he smiled at her compliments – she was not like most of the head family.

"Thank you Hinata-sama, the practice benefits me too." He smiled, but Hinata shook her head.  
"Y-You don't have to call me that when Tou –san isn't here" she smiled weakly not feeling she was above the boy in anyway or deserving of the title.

"You'll be entering the academy soon Hinata, are you looking forward to it?" Asked Neji, not used to calling her Hinata without adding –Sama.  
She nodded her head. "It will be fun to get to know people the same age as me … and …" she said quietly "I would like to get stronger so Tou-san isn't disappointed with me." She continued her happy tone dampened a bit by her last statement. Neji nodded and didn't know how to answer her.

_ **Nara Household**_

the young boy was slumped against the window sill it was big enough for him to sit on, in fact he sat there regularly, watching the clouds stroll along in the sky, he was a lazy child- especially for his age, and he often referred to things as troublesome.

"I wish I could be like the clouds, so carefree – they wander aimlessly, not having to do troublesome tasks like we do in everyday life." Shikamaru said, despite his age he was a natural born genius even without studying which he found to be boring, however he played shogi regularly as it actually made him think hard from time to time.

"Shikamaru, I bought you some practice weapons today, would you like to go play with them?" Yoshino asked her son with a content smile on her face, she wondered how he could just sit there all day and stare at the sky, truly a strange child.

He took the toy weapons from her and decided to visit Choji, who had also recently received training weapons in order to practice before the academy – practicing however meant 'playing ninja' where the children would basically play hide and seek except once found they would be struck with toy weapons to show they were caught.

He sighed as he walked towards his friend's house. "How troublesome…"

_**Namikaze Household**_

Minato arrived home and opened the door, and got a pleasant surprise – or what he thought was pleasant. "Jiraiya-sensei!" He announced happy to see his teacher.  
"Minato." Jiraiya responded rather coldly "Why did I come here to find Naruto alone?" he asked angrily – Naruto had thankfully already left with the Uchiha two, not having to hear Jiraiya speak this way.

Minato's eyes widened. "Alone! Where is Kushina and Iruka!" He said shocked at the news he had just heard. "Naruto told me that Kushina has taken him out for a treat, they have been three hours so far." Minato was about to reply but Jiraiya hadn't finished.

"Naruto told me 'He didn't think his Okaasan even knew he was here.'" Jiraiya's stare was not his usual carefree gaze he was deadly serious, Minato knew how much he cared for Naruto.  
The Hokage clenched his fist. "Where is he now? …" he said softly.  
"With his 'brothers' as he called them when they arrived." Jiraiya sighed, it wasn't him to act this way especially to students of his but he felt it had to be done.

"'Brothers'? …" Minato was confused on what that could have meant.  
"The two Uchiha boys, they're very close – he might even be closer to them than he is with Iruka.  
Actually now that I think about it, there is no doubt he is." Jiraiya said surprised that the Hokage didn't know such a thing.

"He's not a quiet kid despite what you might think Minato. I don't know if you or Kushina realised, but he's only really quiet around his blood relatives and Iruka, in-fact I think he might be one of the nosiest kids I've ever met. He just hasn't been given the chance to show it." Jiraiya looked down – he knew that it wasn't Minato's fault alone.

"How could I have been so stupid?" Minato asked thinking out loud "When he gets home I'll talk to him." He said determination in his voice; he wasn't going to be a bad father to a boy that already had such a burden on his shoulders.

"No." Jiraiya said bluntly "If you do that he'll presume he's done something wrong due to the sudden change. You'll have to ease it in. The mother not leaving him home all alone might be a good start." He said just as the door opened.

"Whose mother left them all alone?" Kushina asked confused as she walked through the door with a smiling Iruka. Minato placed his hand on Iruka's shoulders "Iruka go upstairs, there is something I need to talk about with your mother and Jiraiya-sensei." He smiled giving the impression nothing was wrong and Iruka followed his command running upstairs happily.

Minato walked over to front door closing it softly. Although he wasn't doing a very good job of hiding his anger. "Kushina." He said in an unpleasant tone but was interrupted by a masculine hand on his shoulder.

"The mother that left her child all alone was you." Jiraiya stated, not making Minato say something so painful to his wife. Her eyes widened and her eyebrows frowned in anger she was about to argue with the man.

"He means Naruto!" Minato shouted at her, causing her to gasp – she didn't even realise he was in.  
"O-Oh my god … Where is he!" she asked concern rushing over her, she'd never been so worried in her life, she must have be gone over three hours and left a four year old child all alone. Tears streamed down her face at the thought – he could be gone.

"He's not here." Said Jiraiya bluntly "If I didn't come a few minutes after you left, none of us would know where he was – this time it was his friends who came to collect him, but what if it wasn't and I wasn't here?" He asked angrily "I guess he was right when he thought that his 'Okaasan' didn't even know he was home." Jiraiya could take no more; he took his leave before he lost his temper further.

Tears barrelled down her face. 'What kind of mother forgets about their own child!' Minato came over and pulled her into a hug, "This can't happen again." He said softly in her ears, he felt her nod agreeing with his words.

_**Training grounds**_

"Itachi-Nii?" Naruto inquired to the elder boy, he was having trouble with senbon throwing, they were much lighter than the other weapons and he was not accustomed to them.  
"How come I can't get these senbon to hit the middle like the other weapons?" He was genuinely curious, even Sasuke came over to hear the secrets behind the needles.

The eldest of the three just chuckled, then smiled at the two, he was proud of them – even if only one of them was blood related, he shared a brotherly bond with both of them. He tapped the both of them on their fore heads with two of his fingers on each head.

"Don't throw them as hard as you do the weapons, they're not nearly as heavy" He smiled, feeling like a sensei for the two of them.  
"O-oh "the two said in unison before spinning on their heels and trying the advice their brother had given them. The two senbon hit in the centre of the bull's-eye marked on the wood.  
"It works!" announced Sasuke turning to his younger brother.  
"Alright!" declared Naruto seeing their perfect hits, the two gave each other a high five in approval

The two turned to see a boy they hadn't seen before wandering lazily across the training grounds staring up at the sky, Naruto being the noisy person he his shouted over to the boy.  
"Hey! I haven't seen you around before!" He shouted, running up to the boy with Sasuke hot on his tail. The boy looked down from the clouds, he looked a little startled.

"My name is Namikaze Naruto" beamed the young blonde "This is my two older brothers Sasuke Uchiha and Itachi Uchiha!" he announced introducing the two, who gave a simple nod to greet the boy.

Shikamaru was a smart kid, and decided not to pry at how they were 'brothers' he looked towards the blonde again.  
"What's your name?" he asked kindly with a grin spread across his face.  
"Shikamaru Nara" he said not knowing that a smile of his own had crept across his face, for some reason the blonde just made him feel like smiling, the atmosphere with the three was so happy, maybe that's what made them brothers.

"Oh! You have wooden weapons too!" Naruto smiled "would you like to practice with us? Itachi-Nii is helping us, he's the best sensei ever!" Shikamaru considered turning the blonde down to meet with Choji but Sasuke backed up the blonde. "We just started today and we can already hit the target in the middle every time!" He said proud of his brother's teaching as well as his new found skill.

Shikamaru was shocked. 'They started today and they can hit the target every single time? That can't have been the truth.' A smirk crossed his face.  
"Okay! Let's make a deal if you two can do as you said then I'll be happy to practice with you all … but if you can't then you have to be my friends!" Shikamaru announced, he didn't know how to make friends – it kind of just happened with Choji, but he liked the idea of being friends with the 'brothers' in front of him.

Naruto turned to Sasuke, both looking at each other they turned back to Shikamaru and laughed. Shikamaru suddenly looked disappointed. 'I guess I said something wrong?' he thought to himself.  
"We'll be your friends anyway baka!" the two said, if anyone didn't know Naruto and Sasuke they would say they were twins.

"O-oh" said Shikamaru before smiling happily "Well I still wanna see you hit it every time!" he declared to the boys. The two looked at each other and chuckled. They took up stance facing each other on a straight line. Even Itachi and the newest arrival Jiraiya – who was perched on the tree where Itachi could see him in plain view, the two got along and Jiraiya didn't want think they were being spied on looked on in curiosity as what the boys would do.

The boys ran towards each other at speed, Sasuke clutching Naruto by the right wrist, Naruto clutching Sasuke's left, they span until Naruto was released up into the air, still clutching Sasuke who came with him, Naruto released him as they crossed paths in mid-air pulling weapons from each other's holsters, flipping and landing.

Thud, Thud, Thud. Shikamaru's Jaw could have hit the ground – but it would have been accompanied by that of Itachi's and Jiraiya's. Every weapon thrown hit the centre of the target.  
Shikamaru pointed at the two, eyebrows twitching.

"What the hell was that!" He exclaimed "I've never seen anyone our age do anything like that! I've never even seen Genin do that!" he was truly surprised and now actually looking forward to training with them.

Jiraiya and Itachi smirked with pride at the two. Jiraiya dropped to sit next to Itachi against the tree.  
"Quite the students you got there." He said to the eldest boy, "Did you teach them that." Itachi chuckled "It surprised me as much as it did you." The two shared a laugh.

"Jiraiya! Did you see me!" Shouted a beaming Naruto as he ran to hug him – almost pinning him against the tree. "I sure did! Itachi sure is doing a good job looking after his little brothers!" complimented Jiraiya, Itachi smiled at that – knowing that Jiraiya had always considered the three to act like brothers.

Sasuke tugged at Jiraiya's over jacket "Jiraiya-San! Where can I get cool red markings like the ones you have?" He stared up at the man intrigued by them, Jiraiya chuckled at this. 'Finally! Someone has recognised their greatness!' this was truly a day of happiness for Jiraiya even despite the incident earlier.

He reached into his bag and pulled out red ink, and gently slid his finger down Sasuke's face and showed him in the reflection a kunai. "Wow! Now I look like a strong ninja, just like you Jiraiya-san!" Sasuke announced. "Hey no fair!" shouted Naruto before getting the markings on his face just the same. Shikamaru was curious; he wanted the markings of strength too. He was holding his finger close to his lips as if he was wondering what to do.

"Well! Don't you want the markings of great strength Shikamaru! You wouldn't want to disappoint the proud Nara clan would you?" Bellowed the cheery man as Shikamaru ran over to get the markings himself, now happy that he was one of them.

Itachi smiled at the site of the Jiraiya wanna-bees running around, Jiraiya smiled and announced his leave before he took off. Itachi decided to teach them how to create clones, but his surprise the three already knew how to create clones more advanced than the standard buushin.

"Oh I read about this way to clone and it was supposed to be better than buushin." Said Shikamaru, not filled with enthusiasm more of stating a point. Sasuke nodded "There are many different element buushin, but there is also Shadow clones." He stated.

Naruto instructed the two to make the same hand sign as him and as close to being in perfect time with each other as they could they shouted "**Kage Buushin No jutsu!**" each creating a perfect clone, Itachi's eyes widened in shock – that was a Jounin level technique.

He scratched his head. "I don't know how or where you learnt to do that but I'm impressed, that's far above the level you should be able to achieve, in fact the normal Buushin is usually the final exam of the academy."

Naruto looked a bit worried. "Is it bad that we know how to do it Itachi-Nii?" he said concerned with along with the two beside him. Itachi chuckled, "No, it's actually very impressive Naruto-kun. Maybe I could teach you a different jutsu."

"It would be easier if I knew your 'Chakra Affinity' and I'll also have to test your levels of chakra and how well you can mould it." The three now sat in front of their 'sensei' Itachi, as he continued to explain.  
"Chakra Affinity is something … Hmmmm, I guess… Ah, Chakra Affinity is what element your chakra is, for example one of mine is 'Fire' and I guess Sasuke yours will also be fire but it could be something else, however you will be able to use fire techniques regardless being an Uchiha."

He handed the three of them leaves and something suddenly came back to Naruto.  
"Tou-san made me do something like this before, I had to push chakra into the leaf and he said my Aff-Affin…Affinity, was Wind." Itachi nodded at the blonde, knowing if the Hokage had already tested it then the result would be the same.

"You two mould chakra into the leaf, then I can tell you you're elements." He smiled at them patiently waiting for them to proceed with the test. The two moulded chakra into the leaves. Sasuke was the first to get his result. "Lightning." Itachi turned to Shikamaru, "Earth." The boys looked at each other all excited by their 'new' elements.

"What is yours Nii-san?" Sasuke asked the elder brother. "Mine is fire." He replied to the young boy.  
"Does that mean we can't use other elements?" Naruto said sounding a little disappointed.  
Itachi shook his head. "Although mine is fire I can also use wind and a little bit of earth, so this is actually perfect, I'll be able to teach you all a new jutsu."

Sasuke looked disappointed. "What about me Nii-san? Mine is lightning." He said curious as if he would be learning a technique.  
"Well that wouldn't be fair; I guess I'll just teach you all a fire jutsu." He said cheerily not wanting his little brother to think he'd get left out.

"There is plenty of scrolls that can teach you jutsu; I guess that is where you learnt the shadow clone, so you can learn your own natured jutsu's from there. I'll be teaching you **Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu **(fire style: Fire ball jutsu.)"

Several hours later the boys were exhausted, running around like miniature dragons, they were fast learners alright, they even surprised Itachi, after the first hour they'd manage to produce minute fire balls, but later they had developed it into a strong attack, it wasn't until their chakra started running low two hours later did they finally call it a day.

Itachi was proud of his 'students' and it was hard to take in how much they'd progressed usually that technique would take people around a week to learn, especially if they didn't have fire element affinity. Then again not many four year old children can use the Kage Buushin either.

_**Namikaze Household**_

He opened the door quietly, expecting no one and he'd be able to go up to his room and study more jutsu that Itachi told him about, he was in a good mood from the day, he loved training and he even made a new friend, his markings given to him by Jiraiya were starting to fade and there was dirt on his face, hands and clothing.

He saw his two parents waiting quietly looking towards the door. 'They must be mad, maybe they didn't know I went out? … Now I'm going to be in trouble and be left alone again.' He thought his happy mood suddenly evaporated.

He walked into the centre of the room, the pair of eyes on him, he wanted to just go upstairs- it'd save them shouting. Then all of sudden he was engulfed by a soft embrace, and could feel tears dripping on to his neck as Kushina held him tightly with her head over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry Naruto! I'm so sorry!" she cried out, she clutched him even tighter as he fell into his mother's hug. "It'll never happen again." She pulled away from him to look him in the eyes.  
"If there is anything that is upsetting you or you don't like please don't hesitate to tell us." She said genuinely concerned for the boy.

Minato came into the middle of the room and ruffled his hair,  
"It's a good job Jiraiya-sensei came to check on you, I just missed you going out…you'd tell us if anything was wrong… wouldn't you Naruto-kun?" he smiled at him and placed his Hokage hat on the boy. "I heard you were out training all day! …" Minato had tears coming to his eyes and pulled the boy close. "That's my boy ..." he sniffed fighting back tears "That hat looks good on you" he chuckled weakly.

"Tou-san, Okaasan …" he wept hugging his father tightly, this was one of the best moments of his life, and he felt so warm and safe. Kushina knelt down beside him "You look like a little Jiraiya" she giggled at him, which made him blush.

"Sasuke and Shikamaru had them too!" he announced happily "Ohh Shikamaru Nara? Did you make a new friend today?" she asked happy with her son, he nodded and went on to tell them about his day.

"We practiced the **Kage buushin no jutsu **and **Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu **and even Jiraiya was surprised with our weapon throwing!" he declared, They were in shock, he'd been able to do the shadow clone as well as learn a C rank Katon jutsu in one day?

"Wow! You keep that up and you'll be wearing that hat after all!" Chuckled Minato,  
"It sounds like you've been working hard" Naruto nodded his head and yawned – ready to goto sleep, seeing this Minato picked him up and took him to his bed, they turned the lights off and shut the door but not before they both said goodnight.

Naruto closed his eyes, happier than when he came in he was about to fall asleep but then he came to a place he had never been  
before, it was dark and he could hear water at his feet, all he could see was a large golden gate and a set of red eyes.

**Authors notes: Had a lot of fun with this one, this is the start of my new story!**  
**My other story will continue, but this will become my main project, dealing with Naruto after the war is difficult in my opinion, especially for fight scenes – he's pretty limited to scenarios without giving new techniques – which in combination with the Kyuubi mode, that already makes him pretty much untouchable, would make him seriously over powered and battles that lasted long would either make no sense, or would be completely one sided.**

**In this Story Naruto will be more of a genius than a drop out, but that also applies to Shikamaru, Hinata and Sasuke, oh and Itachi – things will be explained later why the five will be a huge impact on the storyline, but it thought it should be noted, as it's a lot different from the Cannon.**

**Hope you enjoyed the story! Any reviews will be greatly appreciated as well as adding it to favourites or alerts :).**


	2. Intense Training Battle!

They stared down at him, Huge peering towards him, judging him. Yet he felt no fear, he had been told of what was sealed inside him –this must be the Kyuubi, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let it spoil his day.

**"Come closer kid… Let me see who I am sealed within." **Said the beast.  
Naruto walked forwards listening to his commands; he had no reason to go against it.  
"E-Excuse me, are you the Kyuubi?" Naruto asked intrigued by what he was seeing.

**"That's me alright, now come here so I can kill you." **It said grinning a huge toothy grin at the child.  
"I don't believe you." Said Naruto bluntly, this shocked the huge fox.  
"You're not like people say, I can feel it." He said believing the kyuubi was better than people made out.

**"Oh yeah? What makes you so sure?"** The huge fox asked the small blonde child before him.  
"I can see it in your eyes, they are masked with hatred and anger, but behind them is kindness, memoires of happier times and a hint of regret." Said the child – clearly more intelligent than most his age.  
**"This is a surprise I have to admit, you have guts kid. But don't get carri-"**The fox said before getting interrupted.

"What is your name Kyuubi-San?" the small boy asked in complete confidence. The huge beast's eyes widened, he wasn't like the rest after all, and he was treating him like an equal – with kindness something he hadn't received in a long time, if anything this boy had earned his friendship. The beast let out a sigh.

**"No one has treated me with respect like this in a long time, you have truly earned my friendship – and here I thought I was going to have to consume you and break free… My name is Kurama." ** The beast smiled at that – in such a short time in meeting this interesting child – he had given up on the idea of consuming the boy, and in such became his friend – for some reason he felt loyal to the child, much like he did to the Sage of Six paths, and will lend his strength to this child – his only friend in this world.

"Kurama… That's a cool name; my name is Naruto Namikaze, pleased to meet you Kurama." He said smiling ear to ear.  
**"I still don't understand. Why aren't you afraid?"** the beast asked confused of his new position.  
"People can be wrong about a lot of things, especially when judging others – those who don't give people a chance are the weakest of all. I don't think you are so bad after all. We could be friends" Smiled the young blonde staring into the red haunting eyes.

**"Very well, I will lend you my strength until the end – you've intrigued me kid, in fact I no longer wish to be free to a world of hatred and anger." **The fox bellowed, as he said this the room lit up, the walls turned from dark grey to a light shade of blue, and instead of dim candles lighting the place it was as if day light had shone into the room. The water was gone and the room now had stone flooring decorated with patterns.

Behind the Cage was no longer impossible to see, the blonde could now see all of his new friend Kurama and it brought him amazement.  
"Wow! Your amazing Kurama-san!" Naruto shouted, trying to be polite to his new friend especially knowing how long the kyuubi had apparently been living.  
The fox smiled at him as the area around him faded away, Naruto relaxed a little was about to fall to sleep, he could of sworn he heard Kurama.  
**"Goodnight kid."** Said the giant fox.

Naruto woke up the next day, a huge grin on his face, he heard his parents calling him down for breakfast. "Good Morning everyone!" he beamed – the happiness evident in his voice.  
"Someone's happy!" teased Kushina setting up Minato "He must have had a dream about being the Hokage again" he chuckled.

"I made another friend!" announced Naruto to the rest of his family.  
"New friend Nii-chan? I didn't see you go out today" Iruka wondered who he could be talking about.  
"Who is this new friend Naruto-kun?" Asked Kushina happy that her son was so good at making them lately.

"Kurama-san!" Naruto declared with a grin proudly shown on his face, his father turned to him  
"I haven't heard of Kurama-san, where did you meet him Naruto-kun?" asked Minato a little concerned not knowing the person.  
"I met him when I closed my eyes." He chuckled not giving anything away.

"Does Naruto-kun have an imaginary friend?" teased Kushina giggling at her little Minato clone.  
He shook his head violently in denial "He's not imaginary! He's right here!" Said Naruto defensively placing his hand over his stomach.

Kushina was shocked "You mean…?" her tone suddenly a little more serious now, Minato interrupted, "Wow Naruto-kun did you meet the Kyuubi?" he asked curious of what he was like  
" I only saw him when he was being controlled, but he was amazingly strong!" Minato said acknowledging the strength of the beast.

Naruto nodded his head "I met him and now we're friends! He told me his name was Kurama and that he didn't want to consume to escape to a world of hatred and anger!" Naruto grinned happily at his parents.

Kushina looked at her child, he surprised her yesterday knowing those techniques for such a young age, and even more impressed with the new generation when he said his new friend Shikamaru and Sasuke could do them too, any normal kid would probably die just attempting such a thing from severe chakra exhaustion. 'Could it be he's actually be-friended the kyuubi? It never told me its name…' she thought to herself.

Minato smiled proudly at his son "That's great news! So you're both good friends now, huh?" he asked merrily. "He said he would lend me his strength to the very end!" Naruto shouted, telling them all of his new friends promise.  
"I'm impressed Naruto-kun! I guess Kurama and Kushina didn't get along very well, he always tried to escape." He sniggered but meant his words. 'Could Naruto really harness the strength of the kyuubi? And at such a young age is incredible."

"Thank you for breakfast!" Naruto announced while running over to the door "I am going to train with Itachi-Nii and Sasuke-Nii-chan" he shouted half way through the door.  
"Be careful!" The two parents shouted in unison.

_**Hyuuga Compound_**

"Hinata, listen carefully today I will be teaching you what 'Chakra Affinity' you have." Stated Hiashi rather bluntly to his daughter who answered in a silent nod.  
"Chakra Affinity is what the nature of your chakra is, for example. There are five elements,  
Lightning, Wind, Water, Fire and finally Earth." He passed a leaf to his daughter; this was the way that most people tested for the chakra affinity in Konoha.  
"Mould your chakra into this, and we will be able to tell your affinity." He stated to his daughter who did as she was commanded.

"Water." He said bluntly to her.  
"I-Is that g-good?" Questioned the young Hyuuga heiress, she didn't know a lot about chakra affinity in fact she had only just been told about it –she had no idea on what it meant to be told her affinity was water.

"Actually, yes for the Hyuuga clan this would be a good trait, it show's fluid movement and grace, I great thing to have for Jyuuken." He said in the kindest manner he could manage, he nearly managed a smile.  
Hinata's lavender eyes lit up she had finally managed to do something right, she was now curious about her discovery.

"D-Does that mean I'll be good at using water jutsu?" She asked quietly in case she had spoken out of turn. Her father nodded his head.  
"Water jutsu will most likely be your strongest asset having this affinity – however we shall look in to this in more detail, I would like you to goto the local training ground and practice your weapons training." He said trying his best to smile but such a feat could not be done.

She nodded, picking up her weapons and proceeding to leave towards the training ground, she knew she was already very good at weapons, she found it quite easy with or without the use of her Byakugan.

_**Training grounds_**

it had been a few weeks since under the guidance of Itachi, the three had each managed to learn a jutsu of their own affinity, Naruto had learnt the C rank wind jutsu **Fuuton: Goukuuhou** (Wind Style: Great Air Cannon.) Sasuke had learnt **Raiton: Raikyu** - Lightning Release: Lightning Ball and Shikamaru had learnt **Doton: Ganchuusou** - Earth Style: Stone Spikes, but had all learnt a basic level of his clans shadow based jutsu and had learnt how to bind his opponent.  
**  
**"So who is this new friend you have been talking about Naruto-kun?" Itachi asked, expecting to meet the blonde's new friend, "Yeah I want to meet him to Nii-chan!" Sasuke announced eager to meet his little brother's friend.  
Shikamaru sighed "He isn't troublesome is he? …"

Naruto was suddenly bombarded by questions but decided to answer Shikamaru's first  
"What do you mean troublesome?" although he didn't do such a good job of answering.  
"… I'll take that as a yes." Said Shikamaru lazily to earn a chuckle from Itachi.

"His name is Kurama … but I don't think you'll be able to meet him" Said the small blonde to the three. "What do you mean we can't meet him Naruto-kun?" he asked wondering if it was an imaginary friend.

"Well he is inside me, Tou-san sealed him in me when I was born" he explained hoping that it didn't come off as an imaginary friend like his mother had thought.  
Itachi's eyes widened a little at that "Do you mean the Kyuubi, Naruto-kun?" he asked a little concerned.

Naruto nodded and proceeded to tell them all about his meeting with Kurama, it was safe to say they were amazed, a small child befriending the kyuubi – then again Naruto is full of surprises. They began their training session with a sparring fight, however Itachi's training was strict and they had come far from when they first started, most of the training was building their mental and physical attributes as well as stamina and chakra stamina.

With this the three would fight as if it was life and death, however only their wooden weapons would be used, but jutsu's of their choice could be used with in the fight, the one vs one vs one, free for all that Itachi had implemented is good for scenario training such as being outnumbered or betrayed, causing the person to think on their feet and fight more than one opponent.

"Ready? … Begin!" Itachi shouted, noticing a presence, it wasn't hostile so he allowed it to be there, allowed being a key word in that sentence. Hinata was stood close by, hugging a tree; she had to practice her throwing but didn't want to disrupt the four.

The three stared each at other, a tri-angle of quick analysing, strengths and weaknesses, possible tactics, these were by no means average kids, even for prodigies.

They blinked.

Naruto immediately rolled left dodging the array of wooden shuriken thrown by Sasuke, while throwing his own backwards towards Shikamaru mid roll, the rules of the fight stated a limb hit by the wooden weapons couldn't be used.

Shikamaru swiftly leapt backwards and used a cartwheel to force him and Naruto in a position that looked as if they were surrounding Sasuke, he rolled forward into the midst of the two, a brave move but from here he would be able to dodge and use their attacks to take out each other.

Naruto kicked high while Shikamaru followed his lead with a low kick, effectively trapping Sasuke, he took the low kick dodging Naruto's blow that was slightly faster, before disappearing from using a normal buushin.

The two looked into the air, at the floating Sasuke.

"**Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu! **(Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu)" the boy announced spraying fire towards the two targets, an effective way to draw them away from each other, after his blast was sent ground wards he landed and thrown shuriken in a X shape towards Naruto.

Naruto leapt out of the way of the flame, as did Shikamaru, Naruto ducked under the Shuriken taking advantage of the X shapes mid sections, however he had now got an opening against Shikamaru.

**"Fuuton: Goukuuhou**! (Wind Style: Great Air Cannon.)" He gathered wind into his lungs and released a condensed blast of wind towards the fireball, changing its direction as well as the two mixing together to cause a higher damaging attack.

Shikamaru had to think fast he deployed a simple buushin and had it throw him out of the way of the blast and the clone was left to take the hit, during this motion he was closer to Sasuke and thrown three kunai at the boy making him leap in the direction of Shikamaru, Shikamaru landed a punch to Sasuke's face and sent him back some distance before he re-gained control and landed without taking extra damage.

Shikamaru charged further towards Sasuke but didn't see the fast approaching Naruto who had corned him using a buushin, Shikamaru kicked backwards dispelling the clone, but the real Naruto clutched his wrists, span and threw him, in the direction of Sasuke.

Sasuke peered up at him quickly forming hand seals out of the three his were definitely the fastest, he was following the boy with his eyes,  
"**Raiton: Raikyu!** (Lightning Release: Lightning Ball)" Shikamaru crossed his arms expecting impact soon, however the ball flew straight towards Naruto however the Naruto ran closer to it and flanked right at the last moment attempting to spray down his target with wooden senbon.

Sasuke was forced to barrel roll, but used this to conceal his attack of kunai at the now descending Nara. Shikamaru managed to parry them with a wooden kunai of his own and quickly created a Buushin, running towards Naruto to stall him.

**"Doton: Ganchuusou**!(Earth Style: Stone Spikes)" Shikamaru had made more hand seals than required which was what puzzled Sasuke, however he had no time to think of why as he leapt left and right dodging the onslaught of spikes that seemed to be chasing him in a curved line.

All of sudden Sasuke couldn't move. He looked out in the corner of his eye to see a shadow attached with his own.  
"Heh, **Kagemane no Jutsu **success" he said proud of himself for capturing his opponent.  
"Hn."

Poof

The Sasuke in front of him disappeared and Naruto who made short work of the clone earlier, evading its punch and catching it in the stomach with a driving knee, he moved on towards the real Shikamaru still withdrawing his shadow, Shikamaru saw the attack and lashed out with a backhand making perfect connection with the clone…wait the clone?

Naruto was already behind him and used a flat footed kick to the back to push the boy of balanced, before attempting to cover his back in wooden shuriken; Shikamaru fell to his hand holding him just above the ground, the shuriken now towards Sasuke.

Hinata had never seen anything like it, well not for people the same age as her, was it even possible for people to move like that at her age? She wished she could move in such away, it was evident that they had also discovered what element they had as affinity.

The three boys were panting, even after training for several weeks and doing the same kind of fighting it was one hell of a warm up, the fact that it was a free for all really stretched them, especially if they didn't want to take a hit – which would definitely affect them in later training.

"Come out." Said Itachi, who had thought he had given the person long enough to reveal their identity, which gave the impression they didn't know that person. Hinata timidly walked out from the tree into clear view of the four people before her. She recognised Naruto and blushed lightly before shaking it off.

"S-Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt. I was sent here to practice throwing weapons …b-but then I saw how you three were fighting and it was a-amazing, I-I wish I could do things like that …"

Itachi smiled at the girl, he could tell she was a Hyuuga – which automatically meant she held potential. "Do you know your affinity of chakra by any chance?" he asked softly not wanting to startle the timid girl.

She nodded "I-I learnt it was water just a few hours ago…" she spoke softly not knowing what her reply would be. "Would you like me to show you a water jutsu? They can be fairly easy to learn at lower Ranks." He asked her kindly

"I-I would love too! … but I don't know how to use water jutsu." Itachi smiled a soft smile and pulled out a scroll, containing **Suiton: Suigandan **(Water Style: Water Fang Bullet) and showed it to Hinata, it wasn't long until she fully grasped the technique, using byakugan a lot for sparring with Neji had paid off as it consumed a lot of chakra to use she had discovered she had quite a large chakra reserve.

"Okay! You three get ready." Their 'sensei' announced, "This is Hinata – she will be practicing with us from now on, her affinity is water, you four will be fighting against me, I want to see your teamwork and ability to adapt to newly assigned team mate, for the four man cell Shikamaru will be the leader – after displaying the best use of tactics." After briefing them he stood up offering them one minute to prepare.

Shikamaru made the other three gather around.  
"Okay we know Itachi has the elements of Fire, earth and wind, this means Sasuke will attack with lightning when he uses earth and Hinata you attack with water when he attacks with fire, Naruto you can negate his wind with your own, or we can use fire attacks."  
The three nodded going agreeing to what he was saying, still listening carefully.

"We are not to negate his attacks like this every time, only if you or a teammate is in danger of being hit, or it will be wasting chakra, we may have as Itachi said 'amazing chakra pools especially for our age' but his will still be larger, and he is experienced." The other three still paying attention.

"We will use our numbers to our advantage, especially with combination attacks such as fire and wind or water and lightning. Using our numbers we can draw him into being hit – that's if he doesn't use his sharingan – but I don't think he'll go that hard on us." Shikamaru having finished the briefing signalled for them to split into a formation, a C like formation in which it looked to try to surround Itachi from the beginning.

'Impressive, but how will they adapt and work together as a team in the actual fight.' He thought to himself. "Like your attacks I will only use C rank attacks – the ones that you know to be exact, so that my attacks don't overpower attacks created to negate them." He announced to the four.

"Ready? … Begin!" He instructed.

They charged towards him, and then the two frontal units – Sasuke and Naruto split off even further giving them more room in between one another, Immediately Naruto and Sasuke thrown an onslaught of wooden shuriken from different directions causing Itachi to be forced to leap forward.

He didn't expect to be surrounded so quickly, he was surrounded by a rectangle of the young ninja; he raced towards Shikamaru, who seemed to be the weakest in taijutsu, who narrowly managed to avoid a strike to the stomach and leap away allowing Hinata room to attempt to strike him on the arm with her Jyuuken.

Itachi withdrew his arm from her reach, swiftly moving it In and out of his weapons pouch, leaping backwards and sent ranged weapons towards the oncoming Sasuke and Naruto from either direction, they ducked out of the way and he clutched each of them, rotating them and throwing them towards their team mates.

They gave a hand sign to their two team mates, pointing upwards, with that they lowered their heads allowing Shikamaru and Hinata to use them as leverage propelling them higher into the air Shikamaru threw kunai in the direction of Itachi, simultaneously landing one after another each pushing him back a little further, closer the tree behind him.

"Now!" Shikamaru declared  
"**Suiton: Suigandan!** (Water Style: Water Fang Bullet)" Hinata quickly fired out three water bullets towards her target almost pinning him to the tree, Itachi rolled out of the way, two of them left airborne  
"**Fuuton: Goukuuhou**!(Wind Style: Great Air Cannon.)" He fired the large ball of air towards the two, although they managed to evade by a few inches the change in wind made them be pushed back far from their target.

"**Fuuton: Goukuuhou**! (Wind Style: Great Air Cannon.)" Naruto announced stood in a direction that would miss Itachi.  
"**Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu! **(Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu)" Sasuke fired immediately towards Itachi, who then strafed to the left dodging the flames.  
"Now!" he announced to the blonde, who released the bullet of air into the flames, coating it in the fire attack changing the direction to where Itachi was about to land.  
'Crap! What are these kids eating!' he thought to himself wondering how they are doing this sort of level of skill.

He flipped backwards only to narrowly dodge wooden shuriken thrown by Hinata with deadly accuracy who landed just behind him offering deadly strikes of Jyuuken and Itachi was left dancing, twirling elegantly evading while stood upon his hands.

Hinata quickly leapt back raising attention to Itachi, who turned to look at Shikamaru  
"**"Doton: Ganchuusou**! (Earth Style: Stone Spikes)"  
they were heading straight for him, he pushed up off his hands spinning in the air to meet the direction of the attack  
"**"Doton: Ganchuusou**! (Earth Style: Stone Spikes)" he said after quickly forming the hand seals himself, negating the boys attack.

A punch flew over his shoulder as he re-acted almost instantly, swivelling and aiming a punch to Sasuke's ribs, he quickly jerked right to avoid the punch as Naruto pulled him and swung him – rotating him to attack a blind spot of Itachi, who then managed to duck and swept Naruto's legs causing the two to stumble, he leapt into more open area – less likely to be surrounded and left a trial of shuriken heading towards the two.

Itachi made a buushin and sent it towards Hinata, combating Shikamaru himself,  
"**Fuuton: Goukuuhou**! (Wind Style: Great Air Cannon.) … **"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!** (Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu)" The two bullets combined and were sent at hurtling speeds towards Shikamaru

Hinata managed to escape the blow of the clone, still chasing her, she looked at the blast towards Shikamaru and was into the first hand seal before Shikamaru given the hand sign for 'don't proceed'  
The blast hit Shikamaru head on causing his clone to disappear.

He jumped from a tree branch gaining the attention of Itachi who didn't realise the two boys along either side of him sliding along the ground, they swept at his legs, causing him to temporarily loose balance, but landed on his hands, the boys span low and swept his hands as well, Shikamaru now in position

**"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!** (Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu)" Shikamaru let the flames burst forward as his 'teammates' leapt backwards from the blast, Naruto heading to assist Hinata.

"Alright! Got him!" Sasuke cheered  
Poof  
"Dammit! It was a clone?" Shikamaru asked confused, before the two headed to assist Hinata who was barely managing to not get hit, her eyes proving useful to her. But was getting pushed back viciously by the elder's taijutsu.

She leapt back and then rolled forward a further distance, now behind the three that approached who then covered her while she re-gained her breath allowing her to re-enter the fight.  
Naruto and Sasuke weren't attacking together this time – instead Sasuke took the right flank, dodging and parrying Itachi's hits, Shikamaru was preparing a jutsu- Sasuke leapt back from the oncoming fist, Naruto quickly kicking Itachi in the back making him stumble towards the younger Uchiha who managed to land a punch that worked more like a push movement.

It moved Itachi in between the two – Hinata now charged head on towards him, no-where to run with his back against the tree, he parried punches from the two boys and grabbed their wrists throwing them in a X formation making them stumble off in opposite direction, Hinata was about to hit him with a Jyuuken strike, he leaned to dodge the hit, but she withdrew and leapt diagonally left backwards.

Itachi's eyes widened – he couldn't move.  
"…"**Kage…mane no… Jutsu …**success" said the panting boy directly ahead of the older Uchiha. 'They caught me?' he couldn't believe it himself, the shadow quickly wavered – Shikamaru didn't have the chakra to hold him any longer after countless un-noticed attempts.

Itachi moved jerked his arms up willingly unleashing wooden shuriken against the boys chest, who then slumped to the ground as he had 'died'

"one down." Their instructor stated.

He charged towards Hinata, she could negate his fire attacks and was getting the hang of this style of training faster than he would have imagined. She saw him charging and readied herself.  
"**Suiton: Suigandan!** (Water Style: Water Fang Bullet)" she fired the three consecutive water bullets at him causing him to weave in and out of them – but managed to successfully land a punch to her ribs, causing her to jerk backwards and …disappear.

Itachi's battle experienced re-actions allowed him to slump under a Jyuuken although it was much too close for comfort; she swept at his feet only for him to make a small jump over it and was about to land a face shot.

Clones of Naruto and Sasuke grabbed Hinata's arms and pulled her backwards, then dispelled Itachi turned to see what was behind him, the two 'brothers' side by side

"**"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!** (Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu)" they shouted in unison – a combined fireball heading straight for Itachi – Hinata had leapt away from the scene already.  
"No good!" shouted Naruto "Haaaaaa!" suddenly a large amount of blue chakra made itself present swirling around his body.

'What the hell is he doing?' Itachi looked at the boy gathering a considerable amount of chakra, the flame coming towards him – it all felt like slow motion the flames, flickering and edging ever nearer to him but his eyes were set on the young blonde with the flowing blue chakra

"Now!" cried Sasuke grabbing Naruto by the wrist closest to him swinging him round about to catapult him. While spinning Naruto made the appropriate hand seals needed and was fired into the air by the young Uchiha.

"**Fuuton: Oodama Goukuuhou**! (Wind Style: Giant Great Air Cannon.)" A huge ball of wind- much larger than any Naruto had previously fired, hurtled towards the already combined fire ball attack and combined with the flames and was now speeding towards impact almost four times bigger than it was previously, also there was no sign of Sasuke.

"**Raiton: Raikyu!** (Lightning Release: Lightning Ball)" Sasuke held the ball gathering more and more chakra feeding it into the now overly sized ball of lightning standing diagonally left of Itachi he fired it, heading straight towards him after he'd dodged their combined fire-wind attack.

The brotherly attack scorched the ground the impact of it flying past causing a small trench to follow it before it hit a tree – and proceeded to devour the forest behind the tree an attack not suitable for children to be able to conjure up.

Itachi was in direct impact of the overly sized ball of lightning.  
"Now Hinata!" Naruto shouted, the girl already holding back blasting the bullets of water – released her jutsu and fired weakened versions at Itachi causing him to become soaked.

'If I get hit by that lightning after being soaked, there is no way in hell I'll be able to clear them up as easy as I'd liked to have been able to… I've held back way too much as it is, but they're only kids.' He thought to himself deciding that it was time to end practice. He placed chakra to his feet and leapt above the Giant orb of electricity, throwing senbon with deadly accuracy at the panting Uchiha in his sights, hitting him in the chest causing him to 'die' like Shikamaru did.

Itachi landed – pivoted to the other direction, created a buushin and used it to head towards the exhausted Naruto, he dodged every shot of Hinata's Jyuuken and slashed her with a wooden shuriken causing her to fall victim to the same fate as the others.

Naruto quickly stood to combat the clone –throwing shuriken at it, the clone managed to dodge and gain precious yards towards Naruto – who refused to loose.  
He charged towards the clone – releasing a buushin of his own last minute to catch the Itachi clone off guard causing it to hit the clone dispelling it – while the real Naruto landed a punch to the ribs, dispelling the Itachi clone.

"**Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!** (Fire style: Fireball Jutsu)"Naruto saw the scorching flames heading straight for him, he managed to roll out of the way to the left- having to quickly stop himself on his hands or he would have been stricken by an array of kunai. Naruto was about to push himself up but could no longer see Itachi – and as he tried to push upwards he felt the weight a foot push him back down and drop a kunai on to him.

"No fair Itachi-Nii!" Naruto said to the elder Uchiha resting his foot upon the blonde.

Itachi called them all over to the original part of the training grounds that they began the fight at, he was proud of all of them.

"You guys surprised me out there – your teamwork as well as use of jutsu and tactics was amazing, especially for people your age, you quickly adapted to the new team mate as well as accounted for my jutsu ranged as well as the ones that your team possessed, and nearly had me trapped many times."

"An enemy at a lower level – possibly without ANBU training, I'd say the four of you together could just about capture a Chuunin depending on his strength of course. You are definitely worthy of being Genin already. In fact now that I remember you did catch me – if Shikamaru had just a little more chakra then you would have been able to finish me off."

"The point of this training it not only teamwork – using chakra to the extent you have just used it will leave your chakra drained especially considering what your bodies should be used to – this will cause your body to re-act and note that it needs a larger reserve of chakra, thus building your chakra pool."

"Naruto, Sasuke, your team attacks are deadly – to people much older than you as well , the destruction and co-ordination of your last set of attacks was flawless, and just look at the forest…" He looked over to see a huge line of tree's wiped away.

"The amount of chakra you both drew up for the wind attack and in your case Sasuke the lightning attack I am surprised the two of you haven't collapsed, or even died." He said rather bluntly, surprised when recalling how much they did manage to summon up.

"Shikamaru – your leadership skills were incredible, I would never have believed this was your first time formulating attack strategies as well as the formation and attack pattern of your team, your use of jutsu and chakra conservation was also hard to fault."

"Hinata – you were just welcomed into our training today, you adapted very quickly especially with your new water jutsu that you managed to use countless times effectively, your Jyuuken strikes are very good for pushing back an opponent , however you may need to work on their accuracy with members of your clan."

Itachi now felt like a real sensei – training and monitoring the performance of his 'students' he let out a large grin. "I'm proud of you all, but I think it's time we call it a day." He chuckled.

"Let's go get Ramen!" Declared Naruto to the rest of the group after Itachi had dismissed them, they walked towards Naruto's destination of choice.

_

**Authors notes: Well that was a damn long fight scene!  
I really wanted to try something like that – I don't know if people like long fight scenes like that, or like them to be a lot smaller, enough to provide a degree of excitement but end shortly, I'll do this in the future when dealing with larger groups of enemies.**

Poor Itachi! I hope I didn't make it seem like he was weak and that the children were actually close to defeating him – I tried dropping hints that he was holding back a lot, if they were enough I don't know – but yeah he was holding back, but I wanted to display that the four were no ordinary children.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! And the story so far, thank you for reading!  
Also as always thank you to any who review, add to favourites or alerts!

Noticed that this story had gained favourites and Alerts a lot faster than my other story so I guess that is a good sign of improvement!

**Cya next time!**


	3. Academy Days!

Five years peacefully passed and under the watch of Itachi, the three boys improved their skills learning a considerable amount of jutsu for their own affinity as well as several basic fire jutsu, Itachi also taught them taijutsu, and a basic level of defending against genjutsu.

The years seemed to fly by quickly, but every day for the past two weeks had left the boys in a trance of excitement, it was nearing the time they would start the academy – and they had by all means practiced to the best of their ability for the last five years to make a good impression.

Naruto had come out of his shell around home, being the loud child he was everywhere else, however he still studied and training took up a lot of his time, his relationship had improved drastically with his now Chuunin older brother Iruka, and the boy was now being taken around Konoha by his 'Baa-chan', she refused to allow him train every day of the week and often would take him some place to take his mind from it.

The boy was always stubborn at first, declaring to the woman that he needed to become strong, to prove to everyone that he would be able to fulfil his dream of leading a village just like his father, wanting to become the fifth Hokage – next in line to throne in terms of speaking.

Tsunade ignored his cries as dragged him along anyway, whether he knew it or not it was the only time the woman got to see him and often Jiraiya would come along too – so it wasn't like Naruto didn't enjoy these days out – but he was crazy about training, anyone would think he had been left in a room with Might Gai for a few days.

"Oi Baa-chan! Where are we going today?" the boy asked merrily slightly tugging on the Sannin's dark green overcoat, looking around the street for potential stopping spots.  
"Ahhh… who knows? Why don't you ask Jiraiya – I'm sure with he knows somewhere, especially considering how _old _he is." She teased looking over to the man out of the corner of her eyes.

"What do you mean old! You're the same age as me!" he bellowed taking the bait from Tsunade's teasing "…Besides I do know a place we could go actually…" he said cunningly – Tsunade quickly glared at him. "No." She said bluntly to the other Sannin.

"You didn't even hear me out!" he pleaded to the woman, at least trying to voice his idea, who knows it was always worth a try.  
"I'm not going to the hot springs with you and that's that." She said coldly, perhaps she had known Jiraiya for too long, or it may just be because he a self-proclaimed 'super pervert', after hearing his answer he hung his head in defeat.

"Baa-chan! Oi Baa-chan? Can you show me how to do that jutsu that makes people better?" he questioned, clueless of the whole process of the healing jutsu's and how we would have to learn from the very beginning – which would not be completed in one day – that's for sure.

"Sorry Gaki, we're only taking you out today – not for three years. Learning how to be a med-nin takes a long time, especially to heal serious injuries or sicknesses – hmmm maybe I should mention the basic studies of it is introduced to the academy students." She nodded along to her out loud thoughts deciding it would probably a good idea if the academy introduced it before.

"You know Naruto – that was pretty much your idea , now she is going to take it and steal all the credit." He sniggered, it was his turn to annoy the other Sannin – he still didn't like how she had called him old.

"Like I would! … anyway I know where we can go!" she announced deciding to change the subject  
"That new restaurant that opened a couple of days ago was meant to be pretty good, let's go try it out." She huffed off in front of them dragging Naruto along by his hand in a hurried motion to avoid Jiraiya's confrontation – it was her idea and he knew it.

Dragging the blonde boy to the table and sitting down next to him she pulled up the menu and started it to check over it as Naruto did the same, Jiraiya finally catching up slumped down next to them, after ordering their meals Tsunade discovered a drink that suddenly tickled her fancy.

"Bring the Sake!" she bellowed for the entire world to hear, as the petrified waitress ran off to fetch it, quickly bringing it to the Sannin, Jiraiya was now hiding himself with the menu – even he was embarrassed by her actions and he spent his time lingering around hot springs 'investigating' for new book material.

"Naruto-Nii!" Shouted a boy with mid length dark black hair, a smile on his face suddenly noticing his brother in the store. Naruto looked up from his menu to see Sasuke and returned the smile as he came over to their table.

Suddenly the boy was stood close to Jiraiya and was leaning over his shoulder; Jiraiya was taking a drink while the boy whispered something in his ear – using his hand to protect from lip reading. Jiraiya suddenly spurted the liquid in his mouth into the air in surprise. He took a sharp turn of his head looking at the young Uchiha.

"What gave you that idea?" He said still alarmed by the statement, although he was happy it looked that way. The boy scratched the back of his head, glancing to the other Sannin and turning back to Jiraiya.

"Well why else would you two be here together? …" he wondered then looked at Naruto and back to Jiraiya "Hey! If you two are going to be training Naruto-Nii you have to train me as well! Tell them Naruto!" he suddenly commanded after coming to his second conclusion of the day.

"Sorry Sasuke Nii-san, they said they only train me because it was super important that I'm the strongest in the village." He said grinning wildly and then laughing at the surprise on Sasuke's face.  
"..Ahaha… hahah… you're face! …" he said wiping his eyes "We just came for lunch, Baa-chan wouldn't let me train…" he said a little disappointed by his lack of training.

"I can't wait until tomorrow! You better arrive at my house early!" he said before waving and returning to his meal with Itachi – who gave the three a smile before talking with his younger brother.

Naruto tilted his head, what was tomorrow? He guessed it was something important but could not figure it out he decided to ask his other friend.  
"Kurama-san? Do you know what is important about tomorrow?" he asked the fox inside of his mind.  
"**Isn't tomorrow the day you start the academy? I thought you were looking forward to it.**" The giant beast explained to the seemingly clueless blond.

"it's tomorrow? I must have forgotten with all the training." He chuckled now remembering the date and sudden rush of excitement came over him – he would start his ninja training for real tomorrow – and show to everyone just how strong he is.  
"**Naruto – I know you want to show your power to everyone – but do not use my power or **_**that**_** technique tomorrow –you don't want to scare people." **  
"Y-Yeah your probably right… also I'm not sure if I quite have the hang of _that_ yet anyway – but I have plenty of time to practice, I know I'll master it soon enough!" He said finally to the fox before going back to the dinner table with the two Sannin.

"Where did you go Gaki?" Asked Tsunade a little concerned for the blonde having wondered off outside before returning to the table, he smiled at her grateful for the concern  
"I was just speaking to a friend" he grinned, Jiraiya put his hand on his shoulder – this wasn't going to be good for Naruto.

"Ahhh a friend huh? So … What's her name?" said the white haired man chuckling at the boy now victim to his teasing. "Ohhh has Naruto-kun got a girlfriend?" Tsunade joined in and he felt his cheeks turn a red colour.

"I was talking to Kurama-san." He said giving a slight rub of his stomach to indicate what he meant by that. The two Sannin suddenly held off from their teasing and placed the money on the table grabbing Naruto gently by the hand Tsunade whisked him away from the chair. The three hurriedly transferred to a quiet spot in the park – this could be serious depending on what he was talking to the fox about.

They sat down and Jiraiya let out a sigh, he really didn't want to have this kind of conversation with the boy, even if it was important, he looked across at Tsunade and she didn't look keen to start – so he took it upon himself.

"Naruto, what do you mean you talked to Kurama-san? … Is that the name of the Kyuubi?" he asked Naruto just let out a nod sensing the seriousness of the conversation.  
"What kind of things do you talk to Kurama-san about?" Tsunade asked hoping that they weren't bad topics at very least.

"We've talked about a lot of things, we've been friends since I was four years old, he helps me a lot and today I was asking him if he knew what tomorrow was after Sasuke-nii told me to meet him at his house early. Kurama-san told me that it was the day I start the academy and then I came back into the store." He explained, their eyes widened a bit taken back from hearing the miniature speech.

"Y-You've been friends with him since you were four?" She asked a little taken back from what he had said – although this could actually be a huge relief.  
"Yep! When I was four he visited me, and we talked and he told me he didn't want to consume me or be free to a world of hatred and anger, and that he was my friend and would lend me his power until the very end." Naruto announced with confident – in a way he was proud of the fox he kept inside himself, it was so different from which everyone viewed it.

"Wow! He sounds pretty wise, I never had the chance to see him up close – I bet it's an impressive sight." Said Jiraiya nodding his head as he spoke with his hand upon his chin making himself look wise.  
"He's amazing! I couldn't believe it when I first saw him!" declared Naruto to the two, Tsunade relaxed 'I guess there was no harm done after all.' She thought to herself as the three changed the subject and stayed there for a few hours but it was an important day for Naruto tomorrow and so they took him home a little earlier than usual.

Naruto was too excited to do anything, he decided the best course of action would be to sleep, making the next day come sooner – thoughts of being a real ninja at last rushed through his head, tomorrow would be the day that he'd show everyone just what it means to be an Namikaze –Son of the Yondaime Hokage.

_The Next Day_

Naruto's room was suddenly filled with a violent buzzing noise, awaking him from a peaceful slumber he tossed and turned reluctantly for a while before giving in to the worthy advisory and taking full notice of it in order to turn it off.

"Oh you're up after all Nii-chan, C'mon breakfast is waiting, if you don't hurry I might have to eat it for you." Iruka said grinning mischievously at the half asleep Naruto before rushing down stairs. The cogs in Naruto's mind suddenly started turning – absorbing the information he had just heard.

"H-Hey! Wait for me!" he said before rushing down in his brothers footsteps – there was no way he'd miss breakfast on such a day, with his speed his hat fell from his head left to be abandoned on the stairs, he chased in hot-pursuit of the one who threatened his early morning meal.

"Ah, good morning Naruto-kun" Smiled Kushina slowing him and pulling out a chair for him, placing his breakfast down on the table – she was soon joined by Minato, a large grin present on his proud face.  
"Oh well if it isn't the future Hokage, are you excited?" he asked cheerfully already knowing the answer that he would receive from his miniature clone.  
Naruto nodded his head eagerly while emptying his plate, there was no time to stop eating he was going to get there early with Sasuke after all.

Iruka came into the room with the three – he was now dressed in the clothes he wore for his job, his job being teaching at the academy, and rested his hand on his younger brothers shoulder.  
"Hey you don't wanna be late – I heard your teacher Is a really great guy – I'm sure you don't wanna let him down."

Naruto turned to him half confused and half excited, he swallowed his mouthful before questioning Iruka "You know my teacher?" He said with a grin, he was excited to meet his sensei – who would teach him all kind of stuff about being a ninja; no doubt he'd be incredibly strong.

"Well you're looking at him, from now on I'll be Iruka-sensei" he said chuckling at the blonde's reaction, Naruto was excited that his brother would be the one teacher, for sure he'd be able to take adva-

"Don't think just because I'm your older brother I'll go easy on you though!" he announced to Naruto, guessing what he was thinking – he saw he hit the nail on the head when Naruto's ears twitched and he turned around to face him again.

"Like I'd want it to be easy!" he announced stubbornly "If it was easy then anyone could be a good ninja!" he declared to his older brother showing his determination but before he could continue he heard beeping.

"Ahhh! I gotta go meet Sasuke-nii!" he said scurrying out of the kitchen, checking his weapon holster for the correct contents before leaving the house in direction of the Uchiha compound speeding along the streets of Konoha, they were empty thankfully it was still too early for village to spring into life.

_**Uchiha Compound** _

"Sasuke-kun! Naruto-kun will be here soon!" Shouted Itachi, basically telling the young Uchiha to hurry up – after telling Naruto to be early it'd be annoying if he was the one who wasn't ready to go.  
He charged into the main room still slipping his arms through his shirt, his head scanning the room quickly searching for his holster.

He looked over to Itachi who tossed it over to him and smiled, Sasuke gave him a nod and put on his boots, just as he did he heard an excited banging on his door.  
"looks like Naruto-nii is here" he said to his older brother who just grinned at that, "Have a good first day Sasuke-kun" he smiled as the younger of the Uchiha brothers left through the door.

"Hey Naruto-nii" Sasuke greeted, only to receive a smile from the blonde soon to be academy ninja he was brimming with excitement. "Aren't you excited Sasuke? We're going to be real ninjas!" Sasuke grinned back at the blonde  
"What are you talking about we've been doing ninja stuff for years now!" he said in a matter-of-factly way

"Sasuke-Kun!" He heard a girl cry from the distance, he looked towards Naruto who looked back, giving each other an affirmative nod, it was time for the fan girls to strike apparently, no matter how early- they would not allow a quiet walk.

"Look Hokage-sama's son is with them!" The flock of girls suddenly let out a large squeal, an Uchiha and the Hokage's son? It had to be too good to be true, they charged in crowd form in hot pursuit of the two boys.

They leapt upon rooftops applying chakra too their feet – a simple trick they'd learnt in training, they were surely miles in front of those slow fangirls now, Naruto turned to steal a glance of his chasers.  
"What the hell!" he said panicking and speeding in front of Sasuke, who then turned his head to see a unholy sight.

"Eh? Oh My god!" He too increased speed, and met with Naruto who was panting dearly just as he was – this was no simple get away in any one's mind.  
"Is it even possible to move that fast?" Naruto wept questioning the force to be reckoned with behind him, dust clouds in their wake as they ploughed through the streets of Konoha

"We won't let you escape!" One shouted with an odd sense of determination that wasn't missed by the two. 'Walking to our first day of the academy would be too much to ask, why can't it just be peaceful around here?' he thought to himself

"We're nearly there!" Sasuke announced gaining the attention of the blonde besides him, they were going to have to make a dash for it across ground level, this meant a sure fire way to increase the chances of being captured by the squealing fangirls, they hunted in packs like savage wolfs and wouldn't let a target out of their sites easily.

The crowd of fangirls shuffled across the street blockading the street from the building the boys were on all the way to the door of the academy- they would not allow this to be easy. The boys looked down unsatisfied, they looked back to each other and sighed, they'd have to make a break for it.

They dropped down into the centre of the crowd, time seemed to slow as they landed they already detected movements, the fangirls preparing to throw themselves at the two – this would be like multi-combat training they learned with Itachi – except his clones weren't as loving.

The two boys stood back to back – they had developed their teamwork beyond comprehension the two could basically move as one in a unique way – their movements left unreadable to opponents – not to say that the two weren't deadly even when separated.

The onslaught began, a girl launched herself with open arms at Sasuke who was gripped at the wrists from behind, feeling the grip, he flipped himself over Naruto to be positioned in front of the blonde who was then flipped by his left arm and left leg in a choreographed cartwheel like movement.

The boys would make their way through the crowd flipping and twisting, each of their body losing control to the other for a split second in order to avoid a crucial attack, they weaved through swiftly ducking, leaning and dodging attacks.

Closer to the doors the defence thickened, the boys were pressured as three attacked from each direction, before they were surrounded they rushed forwards, thrown chakra to their feet and easily leapt over the three attackers, and where home free.

A sigh of defeat was heard from the girls, seeing as the two had just danced and twirled through their numbers, most not understanding what happened other than they had managed to get away from their grasp. They decided to shuffle into the academy – after all it was their first day also, and if anything that impressive display from the two only made them better fans.

Outside the door to their class Iruka was stood – having the new students lined up haphazardly in front of the door, he was talking to Naruto who had met up with Sasuke, Shikamaru and Hinata, they hadn't seen Hinata for a long time, when she was seven, Hiashi finally recognized the potential she was showing and took her on as his full time mission to train her in the Hyuuga arts.

Shikamaru although spent a lot of time with the two, couldn't attend every training session as he also had the Nara clan techniques to master after all, his control using his shadow had improved greatly, he had also been able to hold it for a lot longer thanks to Itachi's training sessions that worn out his chakra causing his reserves to increase. However playing Shogi with his father was probably his favourite training method, his ability to plan ahead was uncanny, and once he had grasped the game fully he was a keen player of the game.

Shortly after everyone had arrived, and Iruka had taken the register outside of class just to make sure that everyone was here, he opened the door to the classroom allowing the children to flow in quickly, muttering and whispering as they did, the desks were split into groups of three – although the meaning of that would be explained later – however the seating plan didn't necessary choose the team.

Sasuke sat down after separating with Naruto who was lazily strolling in still talking with Shikamaru , he then came over to join Sasuke and sat on the middle of the desk, Sasuke was looking out of the window, but decided to have a conversation when Naruto had sat down – he thought that fangirls were defiantly going to single them out.

"Oi! What the hell do you think you're doing!" shouted the angry pink haired girl, Sasuke turned quickly to look at her 'spoke to soon.' He thought to himself, Naruto cocked his head to the side confused on what the hell he was doing.

"Erm…what do you mean?" He questioned the obviously angered girl.  
"Move." She said coldly to the blonde before her.  
"What the hell do you me-" he tried to argue.  
"I'm going to sit next to Sasuke-kun now move." She said unrelenting to the boy.

"Oi, I don't know who you are, but you better stop talking to Naruto-nii that way." Sasuke said defensively, who did this girl think she is? Fan girl or no fan girl this was going over the line. The girl suddenly changed her attitude in which would cause many to stare beyond belief.

"Naruto…nii? … Oh I didn't know! Gomen, of course you're Sasuke-kun's brother!" She smiled, eyebrows twitching giving away the terrible act, 'Sasuke has a blonde haired brother?' she thought to herself.

"Hmph. That's you just like you fore head girl! You obviously don't know Sasuke-kun at all, besides how dare you speak to Naruto-kun like that!" chirped a blonde haired girl, her hair in a ponytail and her blue eyes complemented by her purple dress.

"I'm sure Hokage-sama wouldn't like you talking to his _son_ like that, even Iruka-sensei wouldn't like you talking to his _little brother_ like that either!" She almost had to fight back a chuckle; it was true though she thought to herself.

"S-Son…l-little brother?..." she said out loud 'Good job sakura, you've just started picking an argument with the Hokage's son! And your new sensei's little brother, not to mention he's Sasuke's brother as well!' she raged at her previous actions

"G-Gomen … Naruto-kun" she said a little knocked of her train of thought "I-Is it okay if I sit on here?" she said doing her best to smile, Naruto nodded and shrugged his shoulder, he didn't know what the hell just happened, he didn't remember Hinata acting like this.

She slumped down next to him 'at least I'm was closer to Sasuke-kun than Ino –pig!' she huffed to herself and turned to look at the blonde behind her, who instead seemed to have her eyes fixed on the blonde sat next to her, things had gone a lot differently than she'd expected – and this was only the first day, she let out a sigh and hoped that class would begin soon.

Too her delight Iruka started, but first he had announced that another teacher would be joining him as well as a legendary ninja would be coming in, she would be teaching a specific subject to the academy students, although it hadn't been revealed.

A few lessons later and they had been issued a break, Naruto decided to have a look around with Sasuke accompanying him, surprisingly the fangirls took the encounter with Sakura as means to back off, which was fine by the two boys now parading down the corridors.

They came to a door that they hadn't looked inside yet, it was another class room and inside Naruto saw a woman who he thought he recognised so the two decided to push it open and wonder in.

"Baa-chan!" Naruto announced before almost tackling the blonde Sannin around the waist stealing a hug, she looked down with a smile – although she was trying her best to frown at the boy who had came into the room without even knocking on her door, he had no manners.

"What are you doing here?" he grinned, eagerly awaiting her response, hoping that it was to visit him on his first day.  
"I'll be teaching you brats how to heal using chakra." She said, this instantly gained Naruto's attention. 'So if I get hurt, I can just heal myself? Hahah … I won't be able to lose!' he thought to himself.  
"Do you mean heal like diseases, or …?" Asked Sasuke not sure of the med-nin training they'd be receiving. Tsunade pulled a kunai from Naruto's holster, and scratched his face.

"O-Ow! What the hell baa-chan?"  
"Shut up Gaki, you're going to be my example." She said coldly "h-hai." He mumbled.

She brought up her hand shrouded by green chakra, she gently placed it up against Naruto's fresh cut and Sasuke watched as it slowly disappeared from his face leaving it as he had never even been cut.

"What the hell? How did you do that?" He questioned, surely the woman before him was a witch, he'd never seen anything like that happen before.  
"You'll be learning to do it soon enough." She said before leaving the classroom.  
"By the way – isn't your break time nearly over?" she questioned, causing the boys to hurry back to class.

The two sat through their first class in the academy along with all the other students that had joined, they would be learning taijutsu and healing jutsu as well as throwing practice, weapon practice, battle tactics, and the appropriate behaviour for certain situations.

The academy would also teach normal education, such as literature and mathematics, but it was mainly focused on building intelligence and being able to apply it to real life ninja situations, this could eventually end up giving the young students the edge in a battle.

Time passed on and they were about to take their 'first' taijutsu lesson, they were escorted into the training grounds by their sensei, Iruka, who was planning to make them spar in order to get a rough idea of where each student would be in terms of current skill, this would allow him to access their weak points and help them build on them.

"C'mon, this way!" he instructed leading them outside, the training ground inside the academy was a lot smaller than the training grounds used by Jounin instructors, and is more for training specific areas, being one for taijutsu and a separate – larger room for ninjutsu, the children followed him in a single file manner, the odd few out of line chatting to each other excited to for their first combat lesson.

"First of all, we will do sparring – this will be to determine your current level of skill, which may be quite low at this point but don't worry, that's why you're here to learn." Iruka stated, he then went about splitting the people up into sparring partners, Naruto was stood next to Sasuke and next to him was Sakura, and he wanted to fight with Sasuke – it was always fun when Itachi told them to do it, although Shikamaru would be a good partner too.

Iruka then started at the beginning of the line,  
"I'm going to give you numbers, one or two – this is a random way to give you partners." He said as giving the numbers, the children pairing together with the opposite number, they reached Sakura who was a one, and Sasuke got number two.

She let out a sigh, she wanted to be Sasuke's partner, and Naruto got to be a number one, but didn't really look excited to spar with Sakura – he didn't have anything against the girl, in fact he thought she was pretty and found her quick to anger personality amusing, but she looked in-experienced, and he really wanted to show people what he was made of, not hurt someone. It was his turn to sigh.

Sakura picked up on this sigh, 'Why doesn't he want to work with me?' she huffed in her mind 'What if he's still angry about earlier…? This might not be too pretty.' She thought a little worried on how seriously the Hokage's son would take this spar.' Suddenly her mood dropped, 'but then again, I haven't heard anything that great about him, I bet he's not so tough!' she argued, mentally prepping herself.

She watched Naruto get into stance, he looked serious – at least he wasn't going to hold back just because she was a girl, so she followed suit and got into a stance of her own.  
She was surprised to say the least when Naruto abandoned his stance and looked at her like there was something on her face, he looked confused.

"Begin!" Announced Iruka to his students and the sound of fighting echoed around the room, Sakura looked tense and stiffened her stance, waiting for Naruto to charge her – knowing his loud personality he was the type to charge straight in without a plan for sure, probably over confident in his abilities or wanted to prove himself or something like that.

Much to her surprise the calm looking Naruto walked slowly towards her not looking to show any sign of going for any sort of attack, she raised her guard, like he could trick her with something like this. She'd just have to attack him first while he was acting so calm, she was about to move her legs when she was halted.

"Wait, wait, wait…" He said patiently, this soothed her to say the least – he was planning some master attack scheme after all, she got back into her stance even with this slight amount of added trust she had now gained. He walked over to her, then he did something she really didn't think would happen, he moved to the side of her and moved his arm out to touch her before stopping, wanting permission so she didn't think he was hostile.

"Can I?" he asked softly, she just nodded which was good enough for him, he placed his right arm against the top of her back pushing it down slightly – it was now a little bent and seemed much more relaxed, his left hand that was resting under her arm that was in front of her was used to push her arm up slightly, straightening towards an imaginary opponent.

'He's helping me? … Well I guess he's not so bad after all.' She thought feeling a little guilty at shouting at him earlier; even her manners were out – especially for his title of the son of the Hokage.  
Naruto stood beside her matching her pose, with changes made in the lower body, his legs were positioned differently and the stance looked better balanced overall.

"If you position your Legs like this it's much easier to push off from your front leg, and is easier to balance – especially while fighting" he grinned towards her as she mimicked his stance, the blonde went to stand in front of her still not fighting yet.

He held up his hand in a way that looked to receive a punch from her, and his legs apart and leaning into it to cushion the blow, she complied and punched his hand with all her force – she might as well show him that she is no push over, even if he is helping her.

"Was that better?" Naruto chuckled to her to receive a friendly nod, at least she looked grateful for the help, "Let's try a kick, use your back leg – your front leg has the balance and the leg behind you will be stronger to kick with." He smiled towards her as she looked to be interested in what he was saying – he could almost understand why his older brother Iruka liked teaching so much.

She followed his instruction and kicked towards his hand, he smiled at her almost proud of his teaching, he then went back to his starting position and was ready to begin the fight – however after teaching her defence he couldn't exactly charge her and inflict all the blows that he possibly could, no, that would render his teaching useless so he allowed her to come to him.

During this she was striking violently, her attack was much more controlled than some of the others in the room and to be honest it packed a punch, Naruto's training in the area really helped to take the hits with a guard when necessary, pain was no stranger to him that's for sure.

She struck mostly with her fists, in a machine gun like fashion- aiming for the same kind of areas not really working Naruto's mind in creating a suitable parry, her speed was quite threatening and it seemed the overall idea behind her attack was to simple beat his arms into they would take no more, no longer even allowing guarding or parrying to occur.

Naruto moved swiftly brushing the blunt of the attacks in a direction away from him, the side of his arms taking the sting from each blow and in his stance, which was reluctant to shift backwards any time soon it was almost like the two were dancing, a very odd dance indeed.

Seeing Naruto brush of her attacks in such a way she was now confident that the stance he taught her was actually useful, seemed to work for him anyway, and guessed that he was a lot stronger than he and others made out – but surely he wasn't too strong, he's too loud and obnoxious, in fact if he didn't spend most of his time studying he'd probably be a drop out, that was her assumption anyway.

Naruto decided that it was about time that he showed that defence wasn't all he knew and this time brushed her fierce right away with force, quickly closing the distance between him and Sakura's chest – despite the fact that he would land blows he didn't need to hurt her, no one wants to get hurt on their first day. He was in a position that caused Sakura to throw her arms back towards her and look down at his head now lower in height than her own – he moved pretty damn quick.

His left arm was raised covering the side of his heard from her right, which he had found out was her stronger side, his right – also his stronger arm was by his side and set into a driving motion, as he punched his body twisted adding moment and sending left arm in behind his head a little, as his fist drove towards her ribs.

'This is going to hurt, a lot.' She thought bluntly, it was like it was moving in slow motion she could see it all happening clearly but there was nothing she could do against it, except wait for it to hit – to her surprise the fist stopped just before her stomach, and then she received a fist that barely pressed against her stomach and he followed through with his left now being his frontal arm due to his use of momentum and she felt the similar gentle push against her right cheek.

She didn't really understand what the hell just happened. She expected pain and got soft, gentle touches, and she lifted her gaze to see him leap back into position almost offering for her to try again, she shook off the fake blows and charged this time with a lot more composure, having figured out that simply blasting his arms with her fists won't make them turn to dust like she had pictured she had decided to go for brash movements.

Naruto saw a glint in her eyes, something different was going to happen – it was the same kind of glint Sasuke had in his eyes that day when he managed to burn Naruto's ass with a new fire style jutsu he had not been warned about, unconsciously Naruto rubbed his behind at the memory, but readied himself for this new attack.

Instead of running straight at him, she weaved a little hoping to catch him off guard on which side she would strike – when close enough to him she looked as if to throw a punch and Naruto followed the moves with his guard now protecting his upper chest, but to his surprise she almost thrown herself to the floor and using arms a balance she aimed two sold kicks towards his ribs.

Naruto surprised by the moves to say the least but that wasn't enough especially after just the one attack, and leaning in a flexible manner he avoid the two kicks. Sakura propelled herself from her arms and was into Naruto's opening at his left side, landing on her feet she followed the use of his momentum movements and went to strike with a straight left, Naruto seeing this brought his arm down in a guard.

She suddenly interrupted her movement again, breaking off from the punch and twisted fully into backhand strike with her right rotating her body now aiming towards the back of Naruto's head.  
'She's a lot better than I thought.' He said navigating his way from the onslaught of unpredictable movements – Naruto would even say he was starting to get fired up and started blocking the strikes with more force almost throwing some of them away offering a display of fast placed, accurate gentle blows to Sakura, also in an unpredictable style of his own.

She was working hard now – countering, guarding and striking back, she felt such a rush of adrenaline, it almost made her feel strong fighting in such a way – in a way she felt like a real ninja, a proud kunoichi capable of putting people straight who dared to step out of line, she hadn't fought seriously like this, even if she wasn't brutally beating the boy with her best efforts, she could almost feel that he was definitely strong just from exchanging blows with him and how much restraint there seemed to be on his gentle attacks.

"Alright! Good work everyone!" Shouted Iruka in a cheerful way, he seemed to be proud of all of the students in the room "And Naruto." He said suddenly  
"It looks like you're a teacher just like your big brother huh?" he said chuckling at the blonde's expense who had a red light forming over his cheeks.

"Wait!" shouted Kiba, obviously pissed off at something, "This guy hasn't even moved yet!" he declared angrily pointing at Sasuke. Naruto walked over to the scene trying to make sense of the matter. After a few nods at Sasuke's positioning and stance he looked at Kiba again and nodded before turning around to the crowd.

They anxiously stared at him expecting some grand enlightenment from the young blonde in front of them, they were basically begging him for the answer looking towards him in hope of receiving the same knowledge that he apparently had over the situation.

"You see." He said pointing his arm towards the two, "Sasuke-Nii is showing off!" he laughed towards the two and then towards the crowd who now had jaws locked on the floors, he continued however. "Sasuke-Nii doesn't want to hurt him, so is offering to only defend." He said nodding towards the crowd who were at least glad they got some form of explanation.

"Doesn't want to hurt me!" Kiba announced "Well it looks like I'll just have to hurt him!" he said charging with some force behind it, Sasuke raised his guard, and just as Kiba was about to connect, he side stepped leaving Kiba to swing where the boy would have been stumbling after, and Sasuke not so gracefully knocked him over the head.

Kiba held his head and ranted comically "God dammit, he was showing off after all!" said the dog boy, Naruto found this hilarious and was now almost sprawled across the floor laughing, holding his ribs and pointing at Kiba who didn't seem at all pleased.

"Hey! What are you laughing at!" he questioned at the young boy, who tried his best to fight down laughter "Gomen, Gomen" he said wiping his eyes and walking over to the boy "It was pretty funny though." He giggled, only to see the brown haired boy lighten up a bit. "I guess" he pouted giving a chuckle of his own, Naruto stretched out his arm and introduced himself, only for the boy to take it  
and give an introduction of his own.

Naruto sighed contently if every day of the academy was going to be like this he'd enjoy it for sure, he was pretty nervous about the first day, but the only thing he regretted was not being able to show off like Sasuke got to, although in his mind helping someone was good too, besides it would be a surprise when people found out that he was no push over, he was almost excited for when that time came.

_

**Author's Notes : First of all, sorry that I haven't written in a while (if anyone cared hahah)  
but compared to the speed I was released the first 10 chapters of The Path to Peace and the first two chapters of this story were released pretty quickly as well, but this chapter was pretty hard to write in all honesty, it was too split up in my head and didn't really have a clear plot except wanting to show a bit of the academy and include the fact that the students would be learning healing jutsu from Tsunade.**

As always I hoped you enjoyed reading! Thanks for the alerts, favourites and reviews especially, If you have time please leave one, it's good to hear if people enjoy the story or not – or even if I could improve on something.


	4. Team's Chosen!

Naruto rolled over, tossing and turning in bed – ignoring the screeching alarm, he really didn't want to leave his warm bed just yet, sometimes it really sucked having your older brother as your teacher he thought as Iruka tore the blanket from him forcing him to get up, the now 12 year old Naruto strutted towards the bathroom rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

As he was brushing his teeth and gazing into the mirror only half awake, he thought back to when he joined the academy, it was hard to believe that it had already been so long – although he certainly felt pretty confident in his own abilities, having learnt a large arsenal of jutsu from both wind and fire styles and found his chakra reserves were beyond any other students even without using Kurama's chakra, and with this he was able to use a large amount of shadow clones as one of his many weapons and perhaps his most favoured.

He walked back into his bedroom, opening the cupboard door and revealing the outfit that he never went without, the orange jumpsuit that he so adored, the black shirt with a simple swirl on it, his mother had said something about Uzumaki one time but he didn't really take any of that information in, as he was eating his favourite meal – ramen.

He'd slipped on his clothes and stumbled down the stairs at a slow pace, he could really use something to wake him up, and he still couldn't believe today had come so fast – today he was going to assigned to a team, his first team as a ninja of Konoha even if his rank was only that of Genin, he was excited none the less. He wandered into the kitchen pulling out what would be his breakfast for the table, it was like he was the only one in the house, as Iruka had set off to the academy and his father was tending to his Hokage duties, and well it turns out his mother liked sleep as much as he did.

After having his first meal for the today he walked over to the front door, tying his hitai-ate a little tighter before setting out, he strolled the early morning streets even they were only just awakening or so it seemed, the birds were in full life however adding a soundtrack to accompany the morning sun's rays that illuminated the village, walking through the village he saw those that gave him the usual glares and hate filled looks – he knew why they did it, and in honesty he thought lowly of the people and the way they viewed him and his friend.

The time he was walking seemed to be a lot less than it was as he was lost in his thoughts, he neared the Uchiha compound where he would be meeting his brother Sasuke it was the regular routine for the two to meet before going to the academy and today would be the last time they went there together, ending the three year spree it had, he arrived at the door and a gentle knock echoed through the silent morning air.

The raven haired boy pulled open the door with a sleepy smile, waving to Itachi who served as the one who would get him moving in the morning – if he was left he probably wouldn't make it to the academy until the afternoon, or that's how he was when he started the academy, he'd matured into quite a light sleeper like his older brother and would usually wake in the earlier hours of the morning giving him plenty of time to prepare for the day ahead. Maybe it was an Uchiha thing.

The two walked out of the Uchiha compound together, hoping not to run into fan girls, they didn't feel like it today – it was an important day and maybe it would be easier to just do a combined jutsu and convert them to dust, much more energy efficient. Although technically that might be considered quite the crime. They sighed collectively almost sharing the same thoughts, chuckled and then moved onto conversations regarding teams, they could only hope they would be placed on the same team.

They pushed open the large double doors of the academy and cruised down the hallway – they were earlier than usual but it was better than being horded by loud girls so early in the morning, they took their regular seats and relaxed letting out a content sigh, they'd gotten to the academy safely without any issue at all. It was a small victory for the two even if it was the only one they had gotten in the three years they spent at the academy.

The two made idle conversation as the class slowly filled up with the people they recognised, the people they had grown up with and when full Iruka pulled the attention of the room towards him for the last register of the class he'd take, well if none of them failed the tasks of their Jounin instructors that is, he almost chuckled at the thought of having a few of them back next year.

Keeping the crowd's attention he decided to get things done quickly the students would be dispersed from his watch momentarily he just had to sort them into the list of teams he had been given. The room was tense, but also had the whisper of excitement in the air, however not everyone would be happy with the teams they were given.

He silenced the crowd of students and proceeded to grab the paper that was sat on his desk, its importance un-known to the other people present; he walked back to the centre of the class.

"Alright! It's time I list the teams already, I'm your all dying to know as it is." He continued without hesitation.

"The first team – Team 8, will consist of: Kiba Inuzuka, Shino Aburame and lastly…Hyuuga Hinata." The first two didn't seem to care much for their team, but Hinata let out a large sigh, she had really hoped to be on Naruto's team.  
"Your Jounin instructor is Kurenai Yuhi." He stated.

"The next team will be Team 7, and will consist of: Sasuke Uchiha…" The tension now building between Naruto and Sakura, even Shikamaru was involved as he had hoped to be on a team with Sasuke and Naruto –meeting new people could be troublesome.

"Naruto Namikaze…" the second team member was given and he gave a large grin at Sasuke, who returned the gesture. Now Ino had joined in the tension – she kinda had a thing for the blonde, after all he was loud, funny, smart, a prodigy, the son of the Hokage, and he was blonde – he was just like her…well except a few of those things.

"The final member of team 7 will be: Sakura Haruno." The pink haired kunoichi let out a girlish squeal that made Sasuke roll his eyes, she was overjoyed to be on a team with Sasuke –and she got on well with Naruto ever since the first day when he helped her with taijutsu, and who knows he may not be a bad second choice.

"Hear that Sasuke-kun? We're going to be on a team!" she announced happily, who earned a short rant from Ino about how she should have been on team 7 to be with Naruto, which earned a glare from Hinata from across the room, seriously sometimes she stared and it was borderline creepy.

Sasuke turned to Ino; he'd had enough of all these fan girls and was going to give them a piece of his mind. "I don't know what's so special about me and Naruto." He stated then proceeded to look over Naruto, pretending to be examining his features. Naruto jumped on the desk and looked down at Sasuke. "Yeah, what so specia- ahh..ahhh!" Naruto spoke before being nudged by Choji taking his seat in the row below.

It was like slow motion Naruto was falling towards Sasuke and it wasn't looking good, before he knew it, their lips met and the whole girl population of the class let out a gasp before erupting in shouts such as 'What the hell!' and 'I was supposed to get his first kiss!'  
Naruto regained balance and pulled his lips away from Sasuke's, in their minds it had lasted too long the moment that it happened, and Naruto decided to play off seeing how angry the girls were.

"See! It wasn't that great, was it Sasuke-nii?" He asked, Sasuke immediately catching on to his cunning scheme "Nothing great at all, I don't see why they're getting so angry." He stated in a stoic voice only for the rage to continue with shouts.

"Ahem!" Iruka cleared his throat with some force, pushing the scene aside.  
"Team seven your Jounin instructor is Kakashi Hatake." He said dismissing them to meet their own Jounin Instructor just like Team 8.  
"The final team will be: Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara and finally Choji Akimichi." The three let out their own comments on their new team mates before Iruka continued.  
"Your Jounin instructor will be Asuma Sarutobi. I wish you all the best of luck."

The room soon emptied leaving only Iruka to reminisce the past three years and the fond memories of the students that he was now passing on to a new instructor it was upsetting in a way, he'd miss them – well except Naruto, he'd see him when he got home.

_**Team 7 Training Grounds_**

The three walked into the training grounds with high expectations, if this was to be their Jounin instructor no doubt he'd be strong, a high ranking ninja, always on time and would be ready to test them to the edge of their abilities in order to make them stronger, this is what they hoped for anyway.

Their idle conversation soon stretched for a longer time period than they would have liked it too, they'd expected him to be here by now – it had been over an hour.

"I bet all the other teams are with their instructors already!" Naruto complained to the other two who nodded in agreement, maybe their Jounin instructor wasn't as good as they thought he'd be.

Suddenly in a poof of white smoke the Jounin appeared in front of their eyes, he had silver, gravity defying hair, with his hitai-ate covering one of his eyes, and below that a face mask meaning only they could see very little facial features of the man, and in his hand was the latest 'Icha Icha Paradise!' book.

"Yo!" he announced seemingly innocent, he looked down at the time and looked back at his new students "Sorry, I got lost on the road of life." Said the Jounin instructor, this nearly earned a face –palm from the three.

"I know, lets introduce ourselves, I'm Kakashi Hatake." Although Kakashi was introducing himself he knew the two boys already, an Uchiha prodigy and the son of the Yondaime Hokage, it'll be hard for the pink haired kunoichi to keep up with these two.

"I'm Naruto Namikaze and this is my brother." Naruto stated politely while pointing at Sasuke, he wasn't quite sure on how to act around a Jounin yet but if the man thought he was quiet then he was dead wrong.

"Sasuke Uchiha." He said bluntly following Naruto's introduction with his name. 'Brother?' Kakashi questioned in his mind, but decided not to pry; in a way he hoped that the pink haired girl before him had some supreme heritage that allowed her to have a blood line or something that would allow her to keep up.

"Sakura Haruno." She said in a merry tone, it wasn't as much as statement as the boys had given but more as just a casual introduction, Kakashi didn't think much of it and if anything thought she was more relaxed than the other two.

"First of all, you are not yet Genin." He said coldly, this was all part of his scheme, the sentence already had earned him confused looks and hidden anger but he shrugged it off.  
"First of all you must pass a test prove yourself worthy, however the fail rate is 66%." He continued now gaining looks of interest from his new students.

"What do we have to do Kakashi-sensei? Is it a written test?" he said hoping that it wasn't the latter he really didn't like writing exams they were too uniform to be true ninja scenarios.

To Naruto's delight his new teacher shook his head. "No this will be a practical examination and your task will be taking these bells from me, however there are only two bells, so only two of you can become Genin." He said while displaying the two bells they had to capture, and then tying them to his lower body.

The fact that only two of them could become Genins suddenly raised the stakes of this examination but in the back of their mind they'd questioned why the three of them would be asked to come here when only two could pass, surely just passing the two that did better in the academy would save the need for such a test.

Kakashi stood up and prepared himself in a fighting stance.  
"You have until noon, if you don't have the bells by then you'll all fail, if you don't come at me like it is life and death you won't stand a chance of getting these from me." He stated in his rather un-enthusiastic sounding voice, the three readied themselves in what looked to be a fighting stance, and then dispersed – Naruto leaving behind a clone in his place hopefully to stall while they created a plan.

The three were crouched down in the nearby forest area speaking in whispers.  
"First of all…" said Sasuke "we need to tell each other our strengths so we can figure out how to make use of those strengths, for example I have lightning style chakra affinity, but also know a lot of fire style jutsu, my healing abilities are bare minimum at best, and my personal favourite throwing weapon is shuriken with steel cables attached."

Naruto followed the raven haired boy's lead "I have a wind affinity, a large chakra supply and can create a large amount of shadow clones, I also have access to some _other_ chakra as well knowing fire jutsu but not as many as Sasuke, I'd say that I'd be the most capable of holding my own in close quarters since I have the use of so many clones to back me up, my healing abilities are enough for a shallow wound, my personal favourite throwing weapon is the Fuuma shuriken but I didn't pack one with me."

Sakura a bit overwhelmed by all of this… what did she have? 'what did he mean by _other _chakra?' she wondered to herself before snapping back to reality she'd probably end up looking insignificant compared to those two.  
"W-well I … I have good healing abilities, Tsunade-sensei said I had what it takes to be a medical ninja someday and that my chakra control is very good, uhm… I don't know my affinity of chakra and don't really know any ninjutsu other than those taught in class, and my favourite throwing weapon is kunai with exploding tags … I guess that sounds pretty useless to you guys huh?" she said a little nervous with her presentation she was easily the weakest member of her team.

To her surprise Naruto and Sasuke shook their heads as if it was obvious "We're all teammates and extra numbers are never useless, they can help to force our opponent to get hit or be caught off guard." Explained Naruto, Sasuke sub-consciously nodding along to it.

After formulating a plan the Naruto clone that was buying them time disappeared in a cloud of smoke, and projectiles of kunai attacked Kakashi supposedly giving away their position, Kakashi fended of the kunai with his own before throwing three well placed kunai back towards the three different locations of his students, to his surprise however there was only three puffs of white smoke.

the white haired man quickly turned his head towards the new threat, Naruto charging him displaying his taijutsu to the man, slamming a fist towards his head – it had power behind it despite his age and speed to match, Kakashi threw his own hand up to catch the first leaving a subtle sting on his hand, Naruto used his grip on his arm as a balance to use a spin kick to aim for Kakashi's mid body.

Kakashi seeing this was force to release his grip and form an X shaped block to defend against the blunt of the kick to the side of his ribs, when suddenly Naruto hopped to the right to reveal an Uchiha boy directly behind where he previously was.

"**(Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu) - Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!" **yelled the older of the students sending multiple blasts of fire towards their new sensei.

Kakashi thinking quickly figured they'd be trying to lure him into something, and decided to stay put and negate the jutsu with one of his own.

"Not bad you two! But you'll have to do better than that!"**  
**"Suiton: -"Thud, thud, thud, and thud. Kakashi looked down; four neatly placed kunai with exploding tags had been sent into the area by one pink haired kunoichi. 'Crap looks like I'll be forced to move after all.' He thought, but in his experience decided to move in a direction that would stand the chance of knocking them off guard and rushed towards Sasuke.

He charged towards Sasuke, who saw this and readied himself accordingly but to Kakashi's surprise grappled him by the waist.

"Now Sakura!" Yelled the young Namikaze ,as a barrage of smoke bombs came from the trees, due to her obvious skills on the battlefield other than her unpredictable fighting style – which Kakashi could probably adapt too, she was used as a key part of a cunning plan.

Kakashi was looking around in the smoke barrages, he heard the pink haired girl create a clone, or maybe two, but only the standard level buushin- still she circled the smoked area from a safe range and propelled shuriken after shuriken into the fog, some coming close to Kakashi, seeing his chance he leapt out of the fog to the left side.

"Fuuton: Daitoppa! (Wind Style: Great Break Through)" Announced the blonde.  
"Katon: Hibashiri! (Fire Style: Racing Fire)" Declared the dark haired male.  
**"Twin Combo Art:** Great Racing Dragon Break!" The two roared in unison as suddenly their chakra levels spiked and the two flashed chakra into the move.

Naruto breathed a great pressured wind towards Kakashi but first it collided with the thick stream of fire, mixing too create the form of a dragon spiralling and twisting towards Kakashi, it was a great orange sight with partial blue flames flickering as it danced towards it target.

Kakashi only turned on his heel just as he landed on his feet and could see that Sakura had already gotten the hell out of there, the thing was moving at a frightening speed. 'Should I negate it with a water jutsu – no, it's a combo attack too risky.' He thought as the dragon was scorching along the training ground burning and digging a new trench in the earth as it went before it slammed into its target letting out a large roaring sound as its shape dispersed and the whole attack washed over its target and stopped – but not before taking out a couple of trees that laid behind the intended target reducing them to burned pieces of bark.

The three quickly regrouped into a basic formation of back to back glancing around not even bothering to look at the scorched pile of ashes that Kakashi had transferred with.

"I must admit that was one heck of an attack especially from two fresh Genins, the whole teamwork was flawless overall too." He said complimenting on their abilities. "It's a shame though – you haven't even come close to touching the bells." He said mocking the three.

"It's a clone!" Naruto announced, he'd manage to detect the chakra spike thanks to a certain someone sealed with in him notifying him of the danger.  
"Break!" shouted Sakura as he looked up at the Jounin soaring through the air doing hand signs at a blurring speed, whatever he was doing up there it was going to have enough punch fend off a combo attack.

"Suiton: Suiryuudan! (Water Style: Water Dragon)" 'I almost feel bad for using this against them, but with those two I'm sure they've seen a lot of techniques of this level – seeing who trained them since the age of four, I'm surprised at Sakura though – she actually provided some use, however if separated from the rest she'd easily become a weakness of the team.' He thought with speed it was insane how fast he could formulate such thought while casually drifting through the air waiting for the appropriate time to release his jutsu.

'Now.' He thought to himself, suddenly water flowed downwards with the added force of gravity diving towards the team of students it shaped into a form of a dragon, it looks the like their twin combo was not the only way of creating dragons.

"Not yet!" Sasuke ordered, Naruto nodded clutching Sakura's left wrist tightly and began swinging her, before she could go against the action he interrupted her thoughts.  
"Just trust me!" he said hopefully as Sasuke was now preparing to go against the mighty dragon.  
'There's no way he'll be able to keep that at bay with fire! Even if he is an Uchiha, even if they used their combo move- the added gravity and element would be too much of a hazard!' he thought suddenly worrying for his new students.

"**Raiton: Kangekiha! (Lightning Release: Wave of Inspiration)**" Sasuke yelled, this technique was quick to use and was supposed to be used in conjunction with water attack, meaning that the dragon was now the perfect stream from the ground to Kakashi, he threw his hands forwards and a bolt of lightning flew up the dragon dispersing it to normal looking water.

Kakashi quickly cancelled the technique a little in shock at the display of the team 'he was an Uchiha yet his affinity was lightning? I wonder…' however he was soon interrupted by the sight of Naruto swinging the young girl by her wrist at some speed too.

For some reason, Sakura didn't know why – but she found herself gathering a rather large amount of chakra in her fist, it just felt like it would make it hurt a hell of a lot more. Then she was launched directly towards Kakashi's landing shape, hurtling towards him fist pulled back ready to pull the trigger and unload the hurt and take those damn bells.

Being adept in taijutsu however Kakashi ducked to the left his head coming close to his left knee, the fist sailing over him and into a tree, the tree now sporting a rather nasty impact whole and surprisingly – rather monster like, Sakura ripped her hand from her tree and she felt that adrenaline come back again. Suddenly she was pumping Chakra to her arms like never before she wanted to keep this rush!

She slammed her hand in a firm grasp each side of the small, wounded tree it was only around twice her. "Auurrrrgghh!" She raged at the poor tree that was now severed in half torn apart by this demon's bare hands. Kakashi glared at the sight, then back at the boys who looked at him worried for his health. They shrugged as if this wasn't their idea, and then looked back at the pink haired shinigami.

She was now charging at him with half a tree swinging it as her club, surprisingly she had actually made him loose ground making him leap out of the way of her swings a few times, getting angered by the fact she was missing with the large weapon she cast it aside throwing it away and charging with her taijutsu alone.

She threw at him Gatling gun fists, merely warming herself up, and trying to weaken his stable block against the frenzied hits, she then changed suit and went to deliver a fierce kick to the guard, Kakashi let his guard loose and went to clutch the oncoming foot, but it sharply changed course as Sakura was now two hands on the floor, left knee in the air almost supporting the push that hit kakashi's chest pushing him back towards the boys.

Seeing their opportunity they sprung too it, Sasuke jumped high from the left aiming towards the man's cheek – Kakashi grabbed the kick and held Sasuke in a vice tight grip making him hang loosely by the leg thrashing in the grip, using the distraction Naruto came in low aiming straight at the bells, Kakashi switched body position so now he was by the side of a falling Naruto and he drilled him in the stomach with a harsh knee making the blonde double over and roll away before returning to his feet.

"Looks like you're not giving up!" Kakashi announced. Swinging Sasuke and launching him head first towards the blonde, the pink haired kunoichi was panting heavily – she'd never done anything like that before and to be honest her mind was now screaming at her that she was crazy.

Naruto grinned widely when he saw the shape of his body approaching him. "Good idea!" He said complimenting Kakashi who wasn't sure what to make of it "C'mon Sasuke-Nii!' he said catching the boy by just his right arm and rotating in place one for control and twice for power hurled Sasuke into the air – who had just about had enough of being thrown around.

The boy soared over Kakashi and was now considered to be on the left side of them, in a trapping manoeuvre they all thrown a storm of shuriken towards their Jounin instructor, to their awful surprise all of them made contact, making many violent jerks in his body as the took the impact of each accurately thrown shuriken.

The students of his were in shock but were soon relieved as the body disappeared in a cloud of smoke, when it cleared the saw a fuse on a bag with the kanji on it for 'Scatter' it was a simple bag filled with Senbon. The three seeing this all leapt off in different directions – just as Kakashi had wanted them too, it had now been an hour, the team tactics had been tested – he wanted to test how they did as individuals next.

Sasuke landed any was about to head to a regroup when suddenly a first was hurled towards his stomach, he was forced to flip backwards putting some space between his opponent or so he hoped but Kakashi was quick, and was on him again he narrowly dodged a fist the left cheek and then a pressing kick, Kakashi threw another punch figuring he had the boy on the ropes.

Quickly Sasuke saw it as his time to counter he pushed it aside and darted towards kakashi's chest  
"I'll get that bell!" Sasuke cried out before attempting to thrust a fist into the centre of the white haired man's ribs – who narrowly managed to pull back in time, Sasuke tailing close to him not allowing the room to recover his defencing throwing kick and punch combos towards the man who needless to say dodged them with ease.

He ducked down to the floor and swept at his instructor's feet making him do a small jump, that was Sasuke's chance, he stopped during ¾ of the sweep and grabbed the older man's feet throwing him off balance and onto his back.

Elsewhere Naruto was being pushed back by Kakashi and leapt right to avoid the kick spewing out Kage buushin as he leapt, two clones charged at the ma, the first took a good beating of a simple two punches to the stomach and kick to the face sending him spiralling out of existence but the second was more prepared parrying and even providing attacks of his own.

This was his chance. He'd use the technique that his father had given him.  
**"Wait! You haven't finished it yet!**" shouted the fox in concern to his friend, if Naruto screwed up it affected him as well. "We'll just have to get it right!" He shouted stubbornly full of determination.

He thrown out his hand and felt the chakra flowing through his body, he suddenly sent it spiralling into the palm of his hand Kakashi who just dispelled the worthy clone looked at Naruto, chakra now visible taking shape, spiralling at a quick rate then densening into a ball, he looked down at it proudly and it took shape of a ball spinning wildly.

"That's! …" Kakashi exclaimed it was quite hard to believe he'd learnt it already; sure Kakashi learnt it from Minato when he was younger but he was a Jounin by then although some good did come of not being able to add lightning manipulation to it as he formed the Chidori. He looked on towards the sphere.

Suddenly the perfect sphere shape started to become unstable around the edges, this was the part Naruto couldn't do – he couldn't manage to make it so compact, even with his superb chakra control from training using healing and practicing so vigorously since a young age. The sphered outline started to dip and spike the rotation speeding up a little causing it to become a disturbing sight.

"**Kid! If you don't add chakra into it and stabilise that thing it's going to blow!" **he shouted at Naruto already knowing what was happening but not sure what to do about it. "Right! I won't let this thing kill me!" he shouted full of determination once again.

He focused on the blue orb in his hand Kakashi knew despite his test this was a good a test as any  
the Rasengan was high class jutsu and very few people could do it. Naruto suddenly illuminated his hand with a threatening amount of chakra and Kakashi's eyes widened as the ball went 2x, 3x,4x, 5x its original form but the chakra wasn't stopping, the ball was now bigger than a basketball and kept fluxing, removing the spasms in its flow as it increased its size it was almost like he intended to make it so huge in the first place and then compact it down to a small size, no wonder the rotation was so fast.

"Arrrghhhhhhh!" Naruto was concentrating hard flowing a scary amount of chakra into the sphere and all of sudden a blue light was forming around the edges of his body almost like outline and then suddenly it too fluxed and became a bubbling form of blue chakra surrounding the boy and his pupils narrowed into slits, the ball now doubled in size again …and again, Kakashi looked at the thing, if he runs at me with that – screw It if he runs at me with that I'm calling on an early holiday.

"**Kid! Kid! What the hell are you doing!**" questioned to his container, suddenly Naruto snapped out of it. "It worked! HAHAHA! It worked! Take that you damn sphere!" he announced merrily, he then realised Kakashi stood looking at him in shock, Naruto's eye gained a glint, and he grinned mischievously towards Kakashi.

"Nooo! ... Nooooo! …. God dammit!" he said as he saw Naruto now taking steps towards him he had already leapt backwards one step to keep his distance. "Just kidding." Naruto chucked and a sweat drop of relief rolled down Kakashi's head.

Naruto then surprising the man once more in one sift motion thrust it straight into the ground, making a huge dent of impact and the sphere wasn't even tickled by the first layer of dirt it blown away – cracks flowing around the main point of impact, still digging with the sphere.

"Holy crap!" He shouted up from his now tunnelling crater "Stupid ball why won't you just do what you're supposed to do!" Naruto now around 5ft into the floor aggressively thrust the sphere at the wall of earth in front of him suddenly there was a large glow of blue emitting from the hole and the sound of whizzing as the rotation met rock and dirt before suddenly the area in front of the thrust was decimated with in a ten meter range.

Including Kakashi's poor clone. Sasuke who had just been kicked away after attempting to snag the bells noticed the explosion in the direction Naruto leapt off, he sent a glare towards his new sensei.  
"Relax. He's fine." Said the always calm silver haired man – Sasuke relaxed at that "… more than what I can say about my clone…" Kakashi mumbled.

"Arrrrghh! Sooooo! Tired!" Naruto said lying on his back, but he couldn't stay like this or he wouldn't become a Genin, from his weapon pouch he pulled out a soldier pill and ate it, feeling the return of chakra in his system he went off to fight for his place as a ninja.

The clone with Sakura was giving her a hard time, she was just dodging and weaving out of the way of hits, blocking occasionally it's all she could do, she was so drained from her moment of beserker mode earlier, she was panting heavily – desperately trying to recover.

Kakashi stopped and looked at her, "The fact that you are still able to dodge and prevent much harm coming to you after you did whatever that was earlier – I'm guessing for the first time…" she nodded at that allowing him to continue "means that a naturally good stamina, in fact you remind me a lot like Tsunade, I'd say that I have a good idea of your skills individually." With that the clone disappeared, the same for the one in front of Sasuke.

The three hopped into the middle where they had started, and by the tree were two bells and a note saying 'Well done, you've earned it.' Sakura suddenly filled with joy blindly ran towards the bells  
"We did it guys!" She said still running towards them as if to secure herself as one of the two genin.

Then a kunai whizzed past her and hit the ground close to the area where the bell was, Sasuke had thrown it and a rope suddenly pulled up, which would have trapped the person who ran to collect the bell. "U-Uh…Thanks Sasuke-kun." She said trying her best to sound grateful but not like a fan girl – she knew they annoyed him, even if she was a master level fan girl herself.

She then picked up the bells and walked towards her teammates when she felt something. 'Chakra?' she thought to herself 'Crap! Get rid!' Inner Sakura screamed at her, she hurled it into the air.  
"It's a fake!" She said as the two bells transformed into Kakashi who laid down three well placed kunai towards them.

"**Kage buushin no Jutsu**!" Naruto declared making three clones and they tackled the original plus Sasuke and Sakura taking the hits of the kunai before poofing into thin air, Kakashi landed – dispelled his clone and allowed them to recompose themselves. He then patted annoyingly on his watch as if to say 'you guys better hurry up.'

"Only one hour left." He spoke out loud – so far he was happy with their skill, but still, it was years to earlier for all of them to be getting the bells, he was sure of that – he hadn't even used his sharingan, and well he was only toying with them to be blunt. He then pulled out a book and began to read. But let out a sigh, he'd read this copy so many times – he couldn't wait for the next.

"Ooooh! You like Jiraiya—Ero-Sennin's books!" Naruto announced. "It would be an _awful _shame if someone here was his Godson, and he visited that Godson and accidently left it at said Godson's house, and the Godson was to carelessly tell the people in this training ground the ending of the long awaited next book." He said giving an awful lot of insinuation to the silver haired man.

'No.' was all he could think of. "Y-You wouldn't!" He shouted weakly to the boy "Try me." Said the young blonde. "Fine. Tell me, see how much I care." He glared at the young student of his. His two teammates looked at it. Naruto hung his head, and sighed.

"Dammit, like I read that crap." He said defeated. 'Kakashi 1, everyone else 0.' Kakashi boasted mentally at his victory over that, it was well deserved. He truly risked a lot.

Naruto sighed again "Okay guys, let's just try getting the damn bells again, even know only two of us can make it – they'll definitely be a way we'll all pass, I promise!" he stated not eager to leave anyone behind. The next forty minutes of the remaining time was spent much like the first section of the training.

The three students sat panting heavily, they had been bested by the man for a good part of the day now and it was now noon. "Times up." He stated to the three panting ninja before him.  
"I have decided. I will allow two of you, since you all demonstrated worthy skills, to pass this test. Decide amongst yourselves." With that he disappeared.

They all looked at each other, and Naruto was shaking his head. "I don't care what he says! There is a way for us to all pass this test! I will not allow my teammates to be left behind!" Sakura nodded to his announcement.

"Yeah! Who cares if the rules of the test say only two can pass, if we were made to come in a three man cell, it just not right to abandon one of them!" argued the pink haired kunoichi backing up the blondes previous statements.

Sasuke just nodded "if we're a team that means if one of us fail, then we all fail."

Suddenly the sky changed dark and there was thunder and lightning like a heavy storm had hit, then Kakashi appeared in a bolt of lightning, scaring the living crap out of all of them.  
"YOU!" He pointed at the three in a menacing way, promising death.

"Have passed." He said and eased into an eye smile, only to hear sounds of relief and cheers from his new students.  
"In the world of ninjas those who break the rules are considered scum, but those that don't take care of their friends are even worse than scum." He stated to the new students of his.

"Alright! Training missions for Team seven start tomorrow!" He announced with the typical 'cool guy pose' sticking his thumb up to the three.

_

**Authors notes: Before anyone complains about Naruto knowing the Rasengan, although not completed – I mean come on he's got the Yondaime hokage right there too teach it to him.**

Anyway hopefully that was over looked, and I fit in a move from a group of moves I'd like to bring up more the 'twin combo' move set that I had Naruto and Sasuke use I guessed it would be good for them to have a kind of teamwork style.

About Sakura being well, not Sakura at all really, that's due to well … you have to admit she was pretty damn useless pretty much 100% of the time throughout the first Naruto series, didn't really want her to be just a character to be in the way, although she won't really get much stronger.

Okay now that that's out of the way, I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter and the rest of the story too! Go check out my other story if you haven't already, and if you have the time please Review , favourite and alert and thank you all so much for already doing so even with only 3 chapters, hopefully this one goes down just as well.


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